About Corita Kent

Frances Elizabeth Kent was born in 1918, taking the name Sister Mary Corita upon entering the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart, a Roman Catholic order based in Southern California. The Sisters were highly educated and known for their intellectual rigor, teaching both in the diocese’s schools as well as at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. As a young sister, Corita taught at Immaculate Heart College while getting her master’s degree at University of Southern California. Eventually, she was appointed to the Chair of the IHC Art Department in 1964. 

The Sisters were a progressive order, open to the rapid social, political, and religious changes of the times. The art department, in particular, was a thought leader, inviting avant-garde artists and designers such as Charles & Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, and John Cage into the classroom. Eventually, Corita’s teachings and her own artwork were deemed too radical by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, creating a constant source of friction, ultimately resulting in her leaving the order in 1968. 

Corita developed her signature style during the early days of the Pop Art movement. As with other artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, she made reference to popular culture in her work–from General Mills cereal to Wonder Bread and gas stations — at the same time including biblical sources and children’s literature, references to the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, as well as the celebration of the simple pleasures of life. In contrast to her Pop Art peers, Corita found a way to bridge the sacred, the quotidian and the poetic, resulting in work that is inflected by Pop, but truly her own.