Collection Artwork
Corita Kent (Fort Dodge, Iowa, 1918 – 1986, Boston, Massachusetts)
chavez
1969
serigraph
Hambly Studios (Santa Clara, California, established 1959 – 2012)
paper size: 11 7/8 x 23 in.
frame size: 25 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 1 1/2 in.
Gift of Harry Hambly, serigrapher, Hambly Studios
printed in Santa Clara, California, United States, North America
2016.14.205
69-80

Installation views

Object Label

“Why not give a damn about your fellow man?” asks a print by Corita Kent. The words refer to a song by the sunshine-pop band Spanky and Our Gang, and the image comes from a Life magazine cover. In these prints, Kent pairs seemingly unrelated text and image from advertising, pop culture, politics, literature, and the Bible, fusing them with the bold, bright colors of the 1960s. A nun from 1936 to 1968, Kent devoted her life and art to faith, justice, and peace.

Kent’s script demands close looking, an act that is filled with reward:

*… all life is to be lived in the spirit of rapt absorption in an arabesque of rhythms … * 1

… under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison … 2

… just meet the faces that you meet beyond the window’s pane … 3

1 Alan Watts 2 Henry David Thoreau 3 Spanky and Our Gang; song written by Stuart Scharf

From the exhibition: Give a damn. (June 30 – September 30, 2018)

Ongoing Research

Research on our collection is ongoing. If you have resources you’d like to share, please contact Associate Curator Rebecca McNamara.
i
Pattern as of Dec 8, 4:59:34 pm
daily on-campus page views: 9
daily off-campus page views: 443
current wind in Saratoga Springs: 8.54 mph, SW
Website design: Linked by Air