Sister Mary Corita Kent (1918-1986) Life 1967 signed Screenprint

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By Myers Antiques

Apr 30, 2023

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• Lot Description
  Corita Kent (Sister Mary) - (American, 1918-1986) Screenprint. Life is a Complicated Business - 1967. Original 1967 screenprint in colors on paper. The serigraph print is pencil signed lower right Corita. This work is identified in the archive as number 67-34. The print is pictured on page 147 and listed on page 228 of the book Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent by Ian Berry. Measures 21.3 inches high, 23 inches wide. Original acrylic frame. In good condition. From the East Hampton, NY estate of artist Nancy Perl Benderoth (1933-2018).
  
  From AskArt: Sister Mary Corita Kent, once the nation's best-known nun, won fame as a serigraph artist. Her bright, colorful silk-screen prints were the rage of the 1960s. She designed the United States' first "Love" postage stamp. Mary Corita Kent was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa in 1918, then moved with her family to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1920. Two years later they moved to Los Angeles, where she grew up. She joined the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary there in 1938. She received her bachelor's degree from Immaculate Heart College in 1941, followed by a master's in art history 10 years later from the University of Southern California.
  
  Popularly known as "Sister Mary Corita," she turned to the silk-screen process in 1950. Her large compositions combine quotations, often from the Bible or modern poetry, with religious or secular images. During her career as an artist and teacher, Kent also designed greeting cards and book covers. She achieved fame in the early 1960s with her brightly colored silkscreen posters. Some of her work includes excerpts from the writings of Carl Jung, e.e. cummings and Rainer Maria Rilke. She began adding words to her designs because, she said, "I have been nuts about words and their shape since I was very young." Sister Mary Corita became one of our country's most celebrated artists and gained international fame through her creative, magical use of color and words. As a muralist, her critically acclaimed 40-foot mural for the Vatican Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair also brought her worldwide attention. She taught at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, the art department of which, under her creative direction, established itself as a center for the art of learning as well as the learning of art. Buckminster Fuller described his visit to the department as "among the most fundamentally inspiring experiences of my life." As a teacher, she was known as a challenger, a free-thinker, a celebrator, an encourager. She taught her students that one of the most important rules, when looking at art or watching films, was never to allow yourself to blink. One might miss something extremely valuable. And what the students cherished most about her competence as a teacher was that she always made eye-contact with each individual, giving herself to each charge entirely.
  
  Perhaps becoming a celebrity came too soon for the nun. It was something she never asked to be, but she carried the burdens of stardom with grace, kindness, and loving warmth. She never was arrogant, and accepted the status because she believed it would help the College of the Immaculate Heart where she was teaching, and she thought it would be good for her community of Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sister Corita became a symbol of the modern nun and was often the target of conservative Catholics, particularly when she turned to regular street dress in 1967. During the late Sixties, the Church, like the rest of the country, was going through changes which angered, threatened, and tormented many of the faithful. The art of Sister Mary Corita began to infuriate certain conservative church leaders. She was considered dangerous. Once she was accused of being a "guerilla with a paint brush"; guerilla meaning an enemy who used familiar images to make blatant statements. It is doubtful if this attack offended the artist. She was a resister, a quiet activist who knew her soul, and did what she could to make the world a better place in which to live. All of this took a toll on Corita and the entire community, who had chosen to experiment and make what were considered "drastic" changes. Even before this, Corita was plagued with an acute case of insomnia. Witnesses who knew her well testified that she would not sleep for three or four nights on end, and that it was evident with every step she took. She was exhausted by all she'd agreed to take upon herself, and was unable to "let go" of her duties "after hours." Father Daniel Berrigan said of her: "Corita was the guardian angel of the world. Therefore she was called to be sleepless." After 32 years as an Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister, she began to ponder a leave of absence, perhaps hoping to resurrect her drooping spirit. After her sabbatical, she informed the community that she would not return, and this literally broke the hearts of her Sisters, who loved her dearly. More than that, they needed her vitality. But Corita felt that she needed time for healing. Collectors and fans of Corita's works -- those eye-pleasing, colorful, impressive, inspirationally blatant messages -- would certainly think that the artist was a very happy person. This simply was never true. She, herself, often admitted that she was down more than up. After more than 30 years as a nun, Kent returned to private life in December 1968, moving to Boston to devote herself to her art, and opening a gallery.
  
  For the next eighteen years Corita created over 50 commissions, in addition to over 400 new editions of serigraphs. Special projects included the landmark 150-foot rainbow painting on the Boston Gas Company's natural gas tank; numerous murals, billboards, book covers and book illustrations, logos, greeting cards, etc. In addition, she published nine books of her own. She also created complete editions of serigraphs for fundraising use by numerous organizations dedicated to peace and social justice. She won dozens of art prizes and saw her work hung in many of the world's major art museums. Critics praised her prints as joyful, exuberant, bold and radiant. Around 1977, the artist developed cancer, and though her doctor gave her only six months to live, she knew that she had major art pieces to accomplish before she died --nine years later. Corita passed away in 1986, bequeathing her remaining prints, as well as the copyrights to all her works, to support the good works of the Immaculate Heart Community. The Corita collection was cared for and administrated by volunteers until 1997.
  
  
  Obituray from EastHamptonStar: Feb. 21, 2018
  
  Nancy Ann Reals Perl Benderoth, an artist, designer, and producer of a documentary film that was nominated for an Academy Award, died at her Jericho Road, East Hampton, house on Feb. 6. Her family, who were with her at the end, said the cause of death was cardiac arrest brought on by pneumonia. She was 84 and had been in declining health for several years. She was born to Barney Reals and the former Annabel Whitney in Brooklyn on April 26, 1933, and grew up in the gated community of Seagate, adjacent to Coney Island. A lifelong painter, she attended Cooper Union and the Art Students League, both in Manhattan. Locally, she studied at the Art Barge on Napeague with Victor D'Amico of the Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Perl also worked as an assistant to other artists and as a stylist for such well-known photographers as Bert Stern and Irving Penn. At one time, she had a career in advertising, working for Mary Wells Lawrence at Wells, Rich, and Greene. Her husband had been collaborating with James Baldwin on a dramatic production of the life of Malcolm X, which eventually became a film. It was was incomplete when Mr. Perl died, and Ms. Perl, a producer on the project, stepped in. Working with the editor of the film, Mick Benderoth, the film was completed, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1972. Ms. Perl and Mr. Benderoth began collaborating both professionally and personally. They formed a film production company, called Benderoth-Perl, and were married on Christmas Eve in 1990. She and Arnold Perl, a playwright, screenwriter, and producer were married in 1956. A former member of the Communist Party, Mr. Perl had been blacklisted and sold television scripts through a front. Though not a member of the Communist Party, she shared many of her husband's political beliefs. They met in the world of theater through Bernard Gersten, co-founder along with Joseph Papp of the Public Theater in Manhattan. She was an informal consultant on costumes and props for the 1953 stage production of "Sholem Aleichem" which her husband wrote. Mr. Perl also wrote "Tevya and His Daughters,” a basis for "Fiddler on the Roof.” In the early 1960s, the Perl family began summering in East Hampton. They were attracted by the many artists and writers and found many kindred spirits here. The family rented a house on Jericho Road for the summer of 1964, with the understanding that the rent could be applied toward a purchase price. They bought it for $36,000. A few years later, the couple also purchased a townhouse on East 18th Street in Manhattan. East Hampton became the center of their family's life, however, said Sarah Perl, one of the couple's daughters, and enjoyed living year round here. They were not religious and celebrated both Jewish culture and heritage as well as Christmas. Ms. Perl said yesterday that when the family spent a Christmas away from Jericho Road, in a house without a fireplace, she asked her mother how Santa would get in. Don't worry, was the answer, "I will let him in.” Ms. Perl Benderoth loved spending long days at Georgica Beach or Louse Point, going in the morning and staying until sunset. Her daughter said her mother would frequently take a black skillet and a stick of butter to Louse Point, where they would seine for and fry minnows. She would often stuff plums into the bottom of an ice-packed carrier. "You would stick your arm in up to your elbow, and pull them out,” Ms. Perl recalled. Her mother opened the Boutique at Enrico Caruso at 110 East 55th Street in Manhattan in 1965, where, her daughter said "she sold 'the best of everything,' including Viennese pastries made by her 70-year-old mother in a tiny kitchen in the Stuyvesant Town apartment complex.”
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