« Features
Corita Kent: The Nun Who Revolutionized the Art World
By Ashley Knight
The Baker Museum in Naples on Sept. 27th unveiled “Someday is Now,” a survey of more than 30 years of work by artist and designer Corita Kent (1918-1986). The exhibition was organized by Ian Berry, Dayton Director of the Tang Museum, and Michael Duncan, independent curator and art critic, in collaboration with the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles.
Corita with student, Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, c. 1955. All images are courtesy of the Tang Museum at Skidmore College and Corita Art Center, Los Angeles.
Corita was born Frances Kent in 1918 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She grew up in Los Angeles and joined the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1936, taking the name Sister Mary Corita. For more than 30 years, she experimented in printmaking, producing a vast body of work that combines faith, activism and teaching with messages of acceptance and hope. Her groundbreaking prints from the 1960s pose philosophical questions about racism, war, poverty and religion and remain iconic symbols of that controversial period in American history. While previous exhibitions have focused on Corita’s 1960s serigraphs, “Someday is Now” is the first major museum survey of her entire career, including early abstractions and text pieces as well as the more lyrical works made in the 1970s and 1980s. The show includes over 200 serigraph prints, as well as rarely exhibited photographs she used for teaching and documentary purposes.
Immaculate Heart College Art Department, Los Angeles, c. 1955.
From 1947 through 1968, Corita taught in the art department at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. At IHC, she developed her own version of Pop art, mixing bright, bold imagery with provocative texts pulled from a range of secular and religious sources, including street signs, scripture, poetry, philosophy, advertising and pop song lyrics. She proclaimed her upbeat theology in prints that repurposed well-known advertising phrases of the time, such as “The big G stands for goodness” (General Mills) and “Put a tiger in your tank” (Esso gasoline). As Corita’s friend, theologian Harvey Cox, noted, “Like a priest, a shaman, a magician, she could pass her hands over the commonest of the everyday, the superficial, the oh-so-ordinary and make it a vehicle of the luminous, the only and the hope filled.”
Corita Kent, for emergency use soft shoulder, 1966, serigraph, 29 ¾” x 36.”
Her avant-garde designs appeared widely as billboards, book jackets, illustrations and posters. Suddenly, the exiguous rooms of her art department were transformed into a global center for design and printmaking that had IBM among its clients. By the mid-1960s, Corita and IHC’s art department had become legendary, frequently attracting such well-known personalities as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock. Her prints featured phrases and graphic patterns that cribbed from cultural references and juxtaposed high and low, techniques seen in the work of contemporary artists from Andy Warhol to Shepard Fairey.
The better care you take of your body now, the healthier you will be when you are ready to retire and dash off and do all of those great things that you have been cialis uk saving for. It is nothing but the liquefied form of sildenafil citrate and belonging to the PDE5 raindogscine.com commander viagra family, was particularly developed for treating sexual dysfunction among women. The impotence medication works at a physiological level to treat the symptoms of sexual problems. viagra france pharmacy Francis’ invalid mother, as well as a son by his first wife, plus John and his brother Joseph, cialis 10 mg http://raindogscine.com/caddies-ganador-de-doctv-latinoamerica-iv/ created a major financial burden on the young couple.
Corita Kent, magpie in the sky #2, 1965, serigraph, 35” x 28 ¾.”
During the 1960s, she lectured extensively, appeared on television and radio talk shows across the country, and on the cover of Newsweek in 1967. As a teacher, she inspired her students to discover new ways to experience the world. She asked them to see with fresh eyes through the use of a “finder,” an empty 35-millimeter slide mount that students looked through to frame arresting compositions and images. Seeking out revelation in the everyday, her students explored grocery stores, car dealerships and the streets of Hollywood.
Corita Kent, M however measured, 1968, serigraph, 23” x 23.”
In 1968, Corita left the Order and Los Angeles. She settled in Boston to devote herself entirely to making art and design. In the next 18 years, she continued to create her own serigraphs–more than 400 pieces. She also made commissioned works for Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting Company). Until her final days she kept active in social causes by designing billboards and posters for Amnesty International, the International Walk for Hunger and Share, among others organizations. The U.S. Postal Service also commissioned her to illustrate a Love Stamp, which was unveiled in 1985. Corita lost her battle with cancer a year later.
Corita Kent, E eye love, 1968, serigraph, 23 x 23 inches.
Today, her Rainbow Swash, created in 1971 and commissioned by the Boston Gas Company, still appears at the Boston Gas tank on the Southeast Expressway, and her work continues influence hundreds of contemporary artists and designers.
“Someday Is Now” is on view through Jan. 4, 2015, at The Baker Museum, Artis-Naples / 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd. Naples, Fla. 34108 / Phone: 239 597 1900 / www.artisnaples.org.
Ashley Knight is an arts writer based in Miami.
