About Sister Mary Corita Kent

Corita Kent (1918-1986) aka Sister Mary Corita Kent, is one of America’s most celebrated serigraph artists. Her magical use of color and word won her international acclaim from the 1950s until her death in 1986. First recognized in 1952 for her serigraph print “The Lord is with Thee” which won first prize from the Los Angles County Museum of Art, Corita’s work never stopped evolving.

Corita by BauerFrom her 1960s Pop Art, to her 1980s billboard project, “We Can Create Life without War, “ Corita’s hallmark mixture of captivating images and provocative texts influenced a generation of Americans.  Her original artworks can be found in the permanent collections of such major museums as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; SFMOMA; the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

As an art professor at Immaculate Heart College from 1947 to 1968, she transformed the art department into a hub of artistic creativity. With a unique and spontaneous style, she soon commanded an important place on the American art scene; Buckminster Fuller called his visit to her department “among the most fundamentally inspiring experiences of my life.”

For the millions of Americans who know her work, Corita is a rainbow postage stamp. Designed in 1985, her rainbow "Love" stamp broke all previous sales records for the U.S. Postal Service and came to be one of her most recognized designs.

For the thousands of Americans who drive the Southeast Expressway in Boston, Corita is the 150-foot rainbow draped over a 73,374 sq. ft. gas tank-- the largest copyrighted painting in the world.

For those who remember the turbulent 1960s, she is Sister Mary Corita, the Californian nun who captured the nation's imagination, and the cover of Newsweek by making art that delivered messages of hope and joy to a troubled world.

 

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