Corita Kent, Love You, ca. 1975

Sister Corita Kent

Love You, ca. 1975

Original watercolor on paper (framed)

Signed in graphite pencil recto

Provenance: Original owner acquired this work from the Corita Art Center

"Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is ‘to fit together’ and we all do this every day..." —Corita Kent
Unique paintings by Corita Kent, like this charming hand signed watercolor, are rarely seen on the market, so this is a real find. It simply, and poignantly says - "love you". It is an original piece done as part of a series by Corita Kent (November 20, 1918 – September 18, 1986), aka Sister Mary Corita Kent, - the nun turned artist who has posthumously become a beloved cult figure after several major museum retrospectives and a profile on CBS News "Sunday Morning" - called "Corita Kent: An Overshadowed Pop Art Icon". In 2021, she was the subject of a much hailed documentary on her art and social activism that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Sister Corita was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Kent was an artist and an educator who worked in Los Angeles and Boston. She worked almost exclusively with silkscreen printing, 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. Kent designed the 1985 United States Postal Service annual "love" stamp.
After high school, Kent entered the Roman Catholic order of Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles. 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. She earned her MA at the University of Southern California in Art History in 1951. Between 1938 and 1968 Kent lived and worked in the Immaculate Heart Community. 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 was friends with Alfred Hitchcock, John Cage, Saul Bass, Buckminster Fuller and Charles and Ray Eames. Kent created several hundred serigraph designs, for posters, book covers, and murals. Her work includes the 1985 Love Stamp and Rainbow Swash (1971), the 150-foot (46 m)-high natural gas tank in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.