someday is now

Artist Corita Kent (American, 1918 - 1986)

Date1964

Mediumscreenprint

DimensionsSheet: 24 × 35 7/8 in. (61 × 91.1 cm)

Credit LineGift of Robert Cugno and Robert Logan

CultureAmerican

Inscribed"someday is now" BL in pen

Catalogue raisonnéCAC 64-18

Object numberPC2017.11.41

ClassificationsPrint Collection

DescriptionSAF[E] WA[Y] is printed largely across the image in black. On the right side of the print is a column of various colored blocks of red, orange, yellow, and blue. In the orange section, there is a phrase from the U.S. Pavilion's brochure at the 1964-65 World's Fair that says: "America's experience is that social concern itself is inevitable. Responsibility for one another is what we mean when we say we are one nation under God." Below, in the red section, MLK's famous passage from his "I have a dream" speech is stenciled in the negative space.
Interpretations Mary’s Day and the Market Basket Corita began directing the Immaculate Heart College’s celebration of Mary’s Day in 1964, transforming the event into a joyous pageant and a platform for her and her students to take their experiments with colors, typography, and signage to the streets. The event was also a means of calling attention to hunger as a pressing social concern. This focus on food became an important inspiration for Corita’s art; her prints from this period consistently reference iconic food brands such as Wonder Bread, Del Monte’s, Sunkist, and General Mills as well as the major supermarket chains, Safeway (whose logo is cut up and used here) and the Market Basket. Indeed, it was the Market Basket, which opened a branch across the street from the College in 1964, that provided much of the visual inspiration for the Mary’s Day event and Corita’s serigraphs. -Erin Maynes, Hoehn Curatorial Fellow for Prints, 2014-17

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