biographie de Mary Corita KENT (1918-1986)

Birth place: Fort Dodge, IA

Death place: Boston, MA

Addresses: Los Angeles, CA, c.1945 through at least 1973; Boston, MA, in 1982

Profession: Serigrapher, designer, educator

Studied: Immaculate Heart College (B.A.); Univ. Southern Calif. (M.A.); Chouinard Art Inst.

Exhibited: The Beatitude Wall" for the Vatican Pavilion, New York World's Fair, 1964-65; IBM Bldg., 1966; Morris Ga., 1967 (in 1967 alone she had over 150 shows in U.S. mus., gals. & univs.); Sala Gaspar Gal., Spain. "

Work: AIC; MMA; LOC; NGA; Victoria & Albert Mus., London

Comments: (Born Frances Kent, known as Sister Corita Kent) A Roman Catholic nun for over thirty years (1936-68), she gained recognition during the sixties as a Pop artist. Incorporating bright primary colors and slogans from the mass media in her silk screen prints, she used her work to convey strong social and religious messages. As a teacher and the head of the art department at Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles (she began teaching there in 1945), she stressed the importance of finding art in ordinary objects and everyday life. Her classes grew in popularity during the 1960s and were viewed as "happenings," drawing ordinary students and professional artists alike. The enormous pressures of such attention (she also received personal commissions to design wrapping paper, advertisements, books, and record jackets) apparently brought her to a decision to return to private life in 1968. She continued to work after leaving the convent, completing such diverse projects as a mural for the autopsy room at U.C.L.A. and designing rainbow patterns for the sides of business machines (Digital Equipment Corp., 1978). Her most famous and controversial outdoor work is her monumental rainbow brushstrokes on a huge gas storage tank on the Boston harborfront, painted during the Vietnam War. Detractors claimed that one of the brushstroke flourishes formed the face of Ho Chi Min, and political controversy ensued. Publications: author/illustrator, Footnotes and Headlines: A Play-Pray Book (1967); Sister Corita (1968); co-author, City, Uncity (Doubleday, 1969); author/illustrator, Damn Everything But the Circus (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970); co-author & illustrator, To Believe in Things (Harper & Row 1971).

Sources: WW73; WW66 (as Sister Mary Corita); Rubinstein, American Women Artists, 345-47.