Sister Mary Corita Kent - Sacred Heart, from A Set of Heroes and Sheroes, 1969

Sister Mary Corita Kent (Sister Corita)
Sacred Heart, from A Set of Heroes and Sheroes
Signed 'Corita' on the front
Limited Edition of approx. 200 (unnumbered)
Published by Hambly Studios (Santa Clara, California, established 1959 – 2012)
Printed by Harry Hambly
printed in Santa Clara, California, United States, North America
Catalogue reference: CAC 69-78
Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent, Ian Berry and Michael Duncahm 2013 no. 69-78
Measurements:
Framed
27.5 inches (vertical) by 16.5 inches (horizontal) by 2 inches
Screenprint:
23.5 inches (vertical) by 12.1 (horizontal)
The Corita Art Center once described Sacred Heart as a "bridge" in the artist's life: from the West Coast to the East Coast, from religious to secular life and from communal obligations to independence. So the split can also be read autobiographically: Corita's own rupture with the religious order and the Church structure, without a rupture in her underlying faith or identification with Christ.
In Sacred Heart, Sister Corita enlarges the head of Christ and places it above a roughly heart shaped stone. Both the face and the heart are bisected by a violent, irregular white tear. So the work is essentially a radical Pop Art reimagining of the traditional Sacred Heart of Jesus - so that Christ's suffering alludes to contemporary human suffering. It treats every wounded human being as part of the wounded body of Christ.

More about Heroes and Sheroes from Corita Art Center:
From 1968 to 1969, Corita created a series of 29 prints that she identified as “a set of heroes and sheroes.” Produced shortly after she took a sabbatical from Immaculate Heart College and subsequently left the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, this series manifests a key turning point in Corita’s artistic output. While Corita never directly participated in the radical activities associated with many of her contemporaries of the religious left (figures such as Daniel Berrigan and groups like the Catonsville Nine), her heroes and sheroes works explicitly reflect the social and political movements of the decade, addressing topics such as labor and civil rights, nuclear disarmament, and political assassinations while also incorporating imagery taken directly from mass media. Notable figures represented in this series include Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, Robert F. Kennedy, and Cesar Chavez.
CORITA KENT BIOGRAPHY
Corita Kent (1918–1986) was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18, she entered the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary. After teaching art at Immaculate Heart College for many years, she became the chair of the art department in 1964. While her first prints consisted of dense, figurative compositions with religious themes and iconography, by 1962 her work evolved into a singular mode of Pop art. Reflecting a wide breadth of disciplinary interests, her bright compositions were not limited to the staple imagery and language of consumer and mass culture but also integrated philosophy, literature, street signage, scripture, and song lyrics in bold text and abstract forms.

Throughout the ‘60s, her work became increasingly political, urging viewers to consider poverty, racism, and social injustice. In 1968, she sought dispensation from her vows and moved to Boston following mounting pressure from the conservative Archdiocese of Los Angeles, as well as exhaustion from her increasingly public profile. After 1970, her work evolved into a sparser, introspective style, influenced by living in a new environment, a secular life, and her battles with cancer. She remained active in social causes until her death in 1986. At the time of her death, she had created almost 800 screenprint editions, thousands of watercolors, and innumerable public and private commissions.

This year, The Marciano Art Collection will present Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images, an exhibition focused on Corita Kent's photographic production and exploration of images, on view from September 26, 2025 through January 24, 2026. Other notable exhibitions include: Corita Kent. La révolution joyeuse, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France (2024); Corita Kent: Get With The Action, Ditchling Museum of Art+Craft, Ditchling, England (2019); Corita Kent and the Language of Pop, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA (2015); Someday is Now, Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY (2013); People Like Us: Prints from the 1960s by Sister Corita, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany (2007). In 2024 her work was included in the group exhibition With My Eyes, Holy See Pavilion, 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venezia, Italy (2024).

Corita Kent’s work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Ludwig Museum, Cologne; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; mumok, Vienna; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Frac Ile-de-France, Paris; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, among others.