Sister Mary Corita Kent, You are God/and You are Not, 1974

Sister Mary Corita Kent

You are God/and You are Not, 1974

Offset lithograph poster

Extremely rare offset lithograph poster, published with printed copyright Immaculate Heart Community, dated 1974
The text reads
You are God and You are Not
It is Good Not to Get the Two Confused
It is One
Underneath is the printed date stamp and copyright of the Immaculate Heart Community
This work is held in its original vintage frame under plexiglass
Measurements:
Framed
16 inches (vertical) by 24 inches (horizontal) by 1.5 inches
Poster (visible)
8.25 inches (vertical) by 16.5 inches (horizontal)
This poster was hand signed by Sister Corita and inscribed to Linda, the daughter of her longtime assistant and protegee Iva Mae Carrico
Provenance: Estate of Iva Mae Carrico; personally inscribed by Corita to Iva’s daughter Linda. Iva, a life-long poet and artist herself, was born in Great Falls, Montana and was half Native American/Indian – her mother Emma Jordan Brown’s lineage being Chippewa-Cree. As a young woman, she had a deep spiritual calling and converted to Catholicism in her late teens. Iva became a student at the College of Great Falls, where she came under the influence of Sister Mary Trinitas, an art professor at the college. Trinitas became Iva’s mentor and encouraged her pursuit of art and education as a vocation. Iva eventually moved to Los Angeles and settled in Glendale along with her husband and three daughters. By 1954 she discovered another “nun who taught art” at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood. This was Sister Mary Corita. Iva subsequently became a dedicated student of Corita’s and engaged in all manner of the activities and events of the art department and school.
Iva’s involvement with Corita spanned a nearly twenty-five year period – eleven of which she served as a staff assistant – at times filling in as Corita’s de facto personal secretary, handling her correspondence along with gallery and museum bookings.
Corita had no budget to pay her helpers: they were paid in prints! This is one of them.
Corita’s art represented her advocacy for peace, social justice and civil rights and speaks as loudly today as it did seventy years ago!
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.