{"id":2311,"date":"2025-03-22T13:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T13:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/a-new-cultural-center-opens-honoring-the-legacy-of-l-a-s-pop-art-nun\/"},"modified":"2025-03-22T13:33:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T13:33:13","slug":"a-new-cultural-center-opens-honoring-the-legacy-of-l-a-s-pop-art-nun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/03\/22\/a-new-cultural-center-opens-honoring-the-legacy-of-l-a-s-pop-art-nun\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Cultural Center Opens Honoring the Legacy of L.A.\u2019s Pop Art Nun"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Corita at a conference, c. 1967. Image courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles, corita.org<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are many art spaces in Los Angeles, but very few honor women. That\u2019s what makes the newly opened Corita Art Center<\/a> in the downtown Arts District so special. Dedicated to the artist, activist and art professor Corita Kent\u2014once known as Sister Mary Corita and, more colloquially, the Pop Art Nun\u2014the center will elevate her legacy of art making and social justice advocacy through exhibitions and public programming, artwork loans and the preservation of her archives.<\/p>\n

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Kent was born Frances Elizabeth Kent and took the name Sister Mary Corita when she entered the Immaculate Heart of Mary religious order at eighteen before pursuing a bachelor\u2019s degree at Immaculate Heart College and then joining the university\u2019s art department faculty. While teaching, she earned a master\u2019s degree in art history from the University of Southern California and taught herself printmaking. Her earliest works were religious in nature, but as Pop swept the art world, she began to borrow themes from advertising and secular music and literature and, as the 1960s progressed, her output became more political. One 1964 print, the juiciest tomato of all,<\/i> was both a play on the Del Monte tomatoes slogan and a call for the church to modernize its view on the Virgin Mother.<\/p>\n

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Corita Kent, stop the bombing<\/em>, 1967; serigraph, 18 x 23 in. Photograph by Arthur Evans, Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles, CA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While her name doesn\u2019t carry the same weight as those of contemporaries like Andy Warhol<\/a> and Roy Lichtenstein<\/a>, Kent\u2019s brightly colored prints that combined popular culture with societal and religious critiques were shown at more than 230 exhibitions in the 1960s. She was named a woman of the year by the Los Angeles Times in 1966. And she made a splash in 1967 when Newsweek put her on the cover of their magazine wearing her coif with the headline, \u201cThe Nun: Going Modern.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Corita in her studio, c. 1965. mage courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles, corita.org<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But she was more than just a nun, of course. Kent was a significant figure in American graphic arts in her own time. She was also a fiery advocate for change, creating thousands of posters, murals and serigraphs in support of civil rights, feminism and the anti-war movement of the \u201860s and \u201870s. And she was a rock star human being who is largely remembered for what she gave, loved by her students, respected by her contemporaries and counting among her friends icons like Charles and Ray Eames<\/a>, Daniel Berrigan<\/a>, John Cage<\/a> and Ana\u00efs Nin.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

To wit, the Corita Art Center is not itself new\u2014it was first founded in 1997 in a small hallway on the Immaculate Heart High School campus. On International Women\u2019s Day (March 8), it officially moved to its own dedicated space in the L.A. art district at 811 Traction Avenue.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: <\/i><\/b>Shana Hoehn Explores the Uncanny Dichotomy Between Suffocation and Shelter in L.A.<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As we face a new era of uncertainty in both the arts and politics, Corita Kent\u2019s assertion that \u201cDoing and making are acts of hope\u201d resonates deeply. The Pop Art Nun died in 1986 after a long and prolific career, but her example lives on. To commemorate the center\u2019s opening, the center\u2019s board of directors wrote in a statement that its \u201cnew chapter invites everyone to participate in building a world of justice, creativity and possibility, where hope is created through collective action.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Heroes and Sheroes series marked a change in Corita Kent\u2019s artistic output. Photo credit Marc Walker \/ Corita Art Center, Photo courtesy of Corita Art Center, corita.org<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The center\u2019s opening exhibition, on view by appointment, is \u201cHeroes and Sheroes<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s the first L.A. exhibition to show that series in its entirety: twenty-nine prints made from 1968 to 1969 honoring historic figures like Martin Luther King Jr<\/a>., Coretta Scott King<\/a>, John F. Kennedy<\/a> and Cesar Chavez<\/a>\u2014people who changed the course of history with their courage, just as Kent bravely changed the world through her practice and her mentorship.<\/p>\n

So, who was Corita Kent? A pioneering figure in postwar American art, Kent\u2019s work bridged the worlds of Pop Art, social activism and spiritual reflection. It\u2019s too easy to think of her as a graphic designer\u2014her work was built around typography, with words and phrases in beautiful cursive scripts or blocky fonts\u2014but Kent was an artist who used text as a medium with which to engage with contemporary culture. Her work challenged artistic and societal norms, and her influence extended far beyond the art world\u2014impacting movements for civil rights, anti-war activism and feminist discourse. Her legacy continues to inspire artists, educators and activists around the world, and her prints can be found in the collections of institutions like LACMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Met.<\/p>\n

In hope<\/i> (1965), we see the word HOPE, backward, over poet Ned O’Gorman<\/a>\u2019s words: \u201cThe secret is to risk disaster, hope for triumph and describe the forms of the incarnation.\u201d Though Kent\u2019s artworks were made over half a century ago, they still feel relevant in today\u2019s America, for better or for worse.<\/p>\n

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Corita Kent, hope<\/em>, 1965; serigraph, 14.5 x 35 in. Photograph by Joshua White, Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immmaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles, CA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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