Midday Art Break: Corita Kent
Take a break from your workday on the second Wednesday of the month and join a curator, museum educator, artist, or local scholar for a 45-minute talk in the galleries.
This month, Mary Weaver Chapin, Ph. D., Curator of Prints and Drawings, will discuss the playful and powerful work in the exhibition Corita Kent: Spiritual Pop, which features approximately 50 prints spanning the artist’s career, drawn from the Museum’s own collection as well as works on loan from the Corita Art Center in Los Angeles.
Born in Iowa in 1918, Kent grew up in Los Angeles. After joining the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and selecting the name “Mary Corita” when she took her vow, she began screenprinting in the 1950s, creating dense, expressionist work based on Biblical passages. By the 1960s, Kent had embraced L.A.’s jumbled, chaotic cityscape as a source of inspiration and was incorporating text into her work. In 1968, exhausted from her teaching schedule and the mounting tensions with the conservative archdiocese of Los Angeles, Kent left the city and the sisterhood, relocating to Boston, where her work underwent another decisive change as she turned to a more universal message of peace and personal growth.
Space is limited. Advance tickets recommended.
Purchase ticketsAccessibility
The Portland Art Museum is pleased to offer accommodations to ensure that our programs are accessible and inclusive. All spaces for this program are accessible by wheelchair. Assistive listening devices are also available for lectures. All restrooms have accessible stalls but no power doors. There are single-stall all-gender bathrooms available. Please ask staff for directions.
We will do our best to accommodate your needs when you arrive, however, we need 2-3 weeks advance notice for some specific requests. Please email requests to access@pam.org, or call 503-226-2811.