everything
Artist
Corita Kent
(American, 1918 - 1986)
Printer
Harry Hambly
(Hambly Studios, Santa Clara, CA)
Titles
- everything from circus alphabet
Date1968
Mediumscreenprint
DimensionsSheet: 23 × 23 in. (58.4 × 58.4 cm)
Credit LineGift of Robert Cugno and Robert Logan
CultureAmerican
Portfoliocircus alphabet
Catalogue raisonnéCAC 68-28
Object numberPC2017.11.09
ClassificationsPrint Collection
Description"EVERY THING" written in orange and bright green letters on a pink background.Interpretations Alphabets and Wordplay Corita created two series of “alphabet” prints in 1968. This print belongs to the second. Known as the “circus alphabet,” the four-part prelude to the series, damn / everything / but the / circus, is a line taken from e.e. cummings and, like the poet, Corita engages in wordplay. Words within words—D(AM)N, E(VERY)TH(IN)G—invite alternate readings. The overall aesthetic is suggestive of 19th century printed broadsides, with block letters and elements lifted from a typesetter’s case. Pictures and text were similarly borrowed from diverse sources such as the Ringling Museum of the Circus. She incorporated bright colors into the whole series as well as a deliberate subtext: “footnotes” of quotes and passages written in her own hand. E eye love (PC2017.11.30), for instance, includes the block letter “E” printed in green over the illustration of an eye, which doubles for the “I” in the quote from Albert Camus, “[I/eye] should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” -Erin Maynes, Hoehn Curatorial Fellow for Prints, 2014-17
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