Art's Rebel Nun
The story of Corita Kent, the LA-based Pop Art nun who achieved international renown for her bold prints, is by now the stuff of subversive legend. A member of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, where she was known under the moniker Sister Mary Corita, Kent deployed the visual and verbal trappings of advertising to spiritual ends — and became famous for it, even landing on the cover of Newsweek in 1967. As a teacher at Immaculate Heart College, she influenced countless LA artists; her admirers included figures as diverse as director Alfred Hitchcock and composer John Cage. In the late 1960s, she left the Catholic order and pursued a successful career as an artist. Though she died in 1986, her cultural legacy remains so pronounced that often she is identified simply as “Corita.”
Corita sometime around 1984 with her billboard, "We Can Create Life Without War." (Corita Art Center)
A critical moment in Corita’s life is about to get a fresh look at the Corita Art Center (CAC), which is also marking the public debut of its new home in LA’s Arts District on March 8th.
For CAC, the new digs have been a long time coming. Since its establishment in the late 1990s, the center had been based at the site of the old Immaculate Heart College in Los Feliz. (The college ceased operations in 1981 and the complex now harbors a high school.) But it was a complicated location — tiny and difficult to access.
In 2022, CAC relocated to a 2,300-square-foot space in the Arts District. Now, it is finally ready to open its doors. “It’s been a journey to get here,” said executive director Nellie Scott as she led me through their new offices late last month, “so it feels really good to say, ‘Hey, we’re here. Come by.’”
A view of the Corita Art Center's new gallery in LA's Arts District. (Marc Walker / Corita Art Center)
The new space (which is modest in scale) will feature a small permanent display about Corita’s life (including that famous Newsweek cover), along with regular rotating exhibitions. And they’re kicking those off with a bang — or a cultural flashpoint, to be precise. It centers on a suite of prints titled “heroes and sheroes” that was produced by Corita starting in 1968 — a series that marked a turning point in her life, not to mention US history.
That year, both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated and the Catonsville Nine in Maryland made headlines when they protested the Vietnam War by burning draft cards with napalm. In LA, Corita was facing struggles of her own — namely, with the arch-conservative James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, who had banned the nuns in her order from teaching because of their liberal tendencies. (The previous fall, the sisters at Immaculate Heart had given up the habit in favor of secular clothing.)
Corita didn’t run the college, but she was one of its most visible exponents. She led its dynamic art department and was a well-known artist who maintained a packed schedule of exhibitions and lectures. This made her a target of the archdiocese — and that took a toll. So, in the summer of ‘68, she went on sabbatical, staying at the Cape Cod home of her friend and art dealer Celia Hubbard. As she frequently did during her summer breaks, Corita spent her time making art, beginning work on a number of prints, including the serigraphs she titled “heroes and sheroes.” When the sabbatical was over, she chose not to return to the order.
"chavez," from the "heroes and sheroes" series. (Corita Art Center)
“heroes and sheroes” captures an important moment for Corita. In these pieces, she expands her range, appropriating magazine covers, headlines, and other news imagery to pay tribute to activist figures such as labor leader Cesar Chavez, the recently assassinated King, and the Catonsville Nine, which included the Catholic priests Father Philip Berrigan and Father Daniel Berrigan (who were siblings). Father Daniel, in particular, was an important mentor and friend. He wrote the introduction to Corita’s 1967 book, Footnotes and Headlines: A Play-Pray Book, which featured her reflections on faith and social justice. And she designed the covers for several of his books, including The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, published in 1970.
Olivian Cha, senior curator at CAC, describes “heroes and sheroes” as Corita’s “most pointed and political body of work.” And its reflections — on peace, justice, and activism — land at a critical moment in contemporary US politics.
The new show also includes objects connected to Corita's practice. (Marc Walker / Corita Art Center)
“For artists, it raises the question, do you obey before you are asked?” says Scott. “I keep coming back to courage and what it means to take a stand.”
The show marks the first time all 29 prints will be seen together in LA — and a key moment for the center that bears Corita’s name, which almost four decades after her death, is still keeping her ideas alive.
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heroes and sheroes opens on March 8th and will remain on view through March 2026 at the Corita Art Center; visits are by appointment and can be arranged through the website at corita.org.
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