Sister Corita Kent

I have no idea how I've never seen Sister Corita Kent's work. I feel like someone has been hiding it from me all this time. It's both a thrill to find new / old art that I love and also sadness that I have been without it for so long. It's a little bit of a feeling of being kept from the cool kids. Her hand drawn type feels so modern to me and notably her splashy colors. I'm in art love. I was also thrilled to learn she attended Otis college of art and design where I've done some of my studies.

Sister Mary Corita Kent, was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa.^[1] Kent was an artist and an educator who worked in Los Angeles and Boston. She worked almost exclusively with silkscreen and serigraphy, helping to establish it as a fine art medium. Her artwork, with its messages of love and peace, was particularly popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s.^[2] Kent designed the 1985 United States Postal Service annual "love" stamp.^[3]

After high school, Upon entering the Roman Catholic order of Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles in 1936 Kent took the name Sister Mary Corita.^[4] She took classes at Otis (now Otis College of Art and Design) and Chouinard Art Institute and earned her BA from Immaculate Heart College in 1941.^[5] She earned her MA at the University of Southern California in Art History in 1951.^[6] Between 1938 and 1968 Kent lived and worked in the Immaculate Heart Community.^[7] She taught in the Immaculate Heart College and was the chairman of its art department. She left the order in 1968 and moved to Boston, where she devoted herself to making art. She died of cancer in 1986