1960's Sister Mary Corita Kent Print "Heart of the City" Modern Pop Art Poem

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Marked -
Copyright 1968 -
United Church Press

Signed "heart of the city"



Based on a poem by Miguel de … Read more Marked -
Copyright 1968 -
United Church Press

Signed "heart of the city"



Based on a poem by Miguel de Unamuno, Sister Corita shows an abstract heart topped by a cross with barbed wire protecting the heart.

Sister Corita created this serigraph in 1961. It was published as an offset print poster in 1968 by United Church Press.

This is an original print from the work of Sister Mary Corita Kent from United Church Press.

Very hippie, inspirational and Iconic Pop Art.

It measures approximately 14" x 10" overall, has no tears or stains, comes from a dry, smoke-free environment, and is strictly graded. Near mint condition.

Corita Kent was a pioneering, Los Angeles-based artist and designer. For over three decades, Corita, as she is commonly referred to, experimented in printmaking, producing a prodigious and groundbreaking body of work that combines faith, activism, and teaching with messages of acceptance and hope. Her vibrant, Pop-inspired prints from the 1960s pose philosophical questions about racism, war, poverty, and religion and remain iconic symbols of that period in American history.


Sister Mary Corita Kent was a social justice artist. A contemporary of Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha, Corita Kent (aka Sister Mary Corita) created eye-popping screenprints and drawings that combined corporate logos with excerpts from some of the artist’s favorite writers, creating an intersection between religious euphoria and advertising hyperbole.

A Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Corita taught at the Art Department at Immaculate Heart College from 1947 through 1968. At IHC, Corita developed her own version of Pop art, mixing bright, bold imagery with provocative texts pulled from a range of secular and religious sources, including street signs, scripture, poetry, philosophy, advertising, and pop song lyrics. She used printmaking as a populist medium to communicate with the world, and her avant-garde designs appeared widely as billboards, book jackets, illustrations, and posters. By the mid-1960s Corita and IHC’s art department had become legendary, frequently bringing such guests as John Cage, Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Saul Bass, and Alfred Hitchcock. Dubbed the “joyous revolutionary” by artist Ben Shahn, Corita lectured extensively, appeared on television and radio talk shows across the country, and on the cover of Newsweek in 1967.

As a teacher, Corita inspired her students to discover new ways of experiencing the world. She asked them to see with fresh eyes through the use of a "finder," an empty 35mm slide mount that students looked through to frame arresting compositions and images. Seeking out revelation in the everyday, students explored grocery stores, car dealerships, and the streets of Hollywood. As Corita’s friend, theologian Harvey Cox, noted, “Like a priest, a shaman, a magician, she could pass her hands over the commonest of the everyday, the superficial, the oh-so-ordinary, and make it a vehicle of the luminous, the only, and the hope filled.

Corita Kent (November 20, 1918 – September 18, 1986), aka Sister Mary Corita Kent, 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 and seigraph, 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.

Bold colors and innovative text over imagery made her the Andy Warhol of the West Coast. A fascinating piece of history, Sister Corita was producing groundbreaking art during the tumult of the 1960s, and is now regarded as a major artist that was fiercely independent and hugely influential. See less