Sister Corita: Love in the Heart, Love in the Art

Peace. Love. Understanding. These were the words that formed the theological trinity behind the actions undertaken as a nun by Sister Corita. The same verbal trio appeared as a driving force in her 1960s and 70s art.  And ironically, given the teachings of Jesus, they were also the words that forced Sister Corita to renounce her vows and continue her art as Corita Kent.

Sister Corita's art is the focus of the exhibition R(ad)ical Love: Sister Mary Corita at the National Museum of Women in the Arts., which features silk-screen prints she made from 1963 to 1967.

Best known for adopting designs from advertisements and refocusing them to create her vibrant, colorful work, Sister Corita's works are similar to those pop pieces created by her contemporary Andy Warhol. But where Warhol's work was cynically worldly, Sister Corita's took on a spiritual dimension. Much of her work centered around 2 of the hottest topics of the time, the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. In her art, she called repeatedly for love, justice, and generosity.

In 1964, she created a piece "The Juiciest Tomato of Them All," which she said could be used to describe Mother Mary. Certain conservative Catholic Church officials began calling her work too flippant, controversial, and in some cases, even dangerous.  Four years later, she left the California order and moved to Boston, but continued to make her socially activist posters.

Some of the works contained in the exhibition show how she upended popular advertising slogans of the time. For example, one heralds that "Love Is Here to Stay and That Is Enough to Be a Tiger in Your Tank." Others show her political side. In one, she combines a front page of The Los Angeles  Times about the Watts Riots with the text of a sermon by Rev. Maurice Ouellet which begins: :"The  body of Christ is no more comfortable now than when it was hung from the cross" to create a powerful indictment of the state of race relations.

In the late 1960s, her colors and word forms previewed what would become the psychedelic concert poster art forms of the Fillmore West, the Fillmore East, and other rock venues.

Corita Kent died in 1986. Her work is still being carried on by the Corita Art Center in Hollywood.

Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
Controversies between socially activist nuns and more conservative Catholic Church male leaders are nothing new. Melinda Henneberger, author of the She the People column in The Washington Post recently discussed Sister Corita's stands in light of last month's Nuns on the Bus campaign. To read the column, click here. You can learn more about Nuns on the Bus by viewing this video clip from The Colbert Nation.