Corita Kent, a nun and pop artist, helped design publicity materials for a 1960s Los Angeles urban planning committee—but historians do not yet know how deeply she shaped its vision. This doctoral research uses a fellowship at the Huntington Library to investigate Kent’s role in the Inter-Religious Committee of the Los Angeles Goals project, a group that brought religious perspectives to city planning and sparked both influence and controversy. The Huntington holds archival material and sits near the neighbourhoods central to the story, offering access to records and local expertise that are unavailable elsewhere. If the research succeeds, it will clarify how an artist-nun contributed to a bold, interfaith experiment in urban design—a moment when religious communities tried to shape the physical and social fabric of a growing city. This is fundamental historical and art-historical scholarship. It will not directly change infrastructure or policy today, but understanding how diverse groups once collaborated on city planning could inform how future communities approach similar challenges.
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My doctoral research explores the life and practice of American artist, educator and Roman Catholic nun Corita Kent with a particular focus on interreligious exchange. Central to my thesis is the investigation of Kent’s experience of living and working in Los Angeles during the 1960s, which greatly inflected her artistic output as well as her spiritual sensibility. A fellowship at the Huntington Library will provide essential material for an innovative investigation into Corita’s involvement with the Inter-Religious Committee of the Los Angeles Goals project. Intended to provide a religious perspective to the development of urban planning, the Committee became an influential and, at times, controversial grouping within the wider Goals project. Corita’s artwork was utilised in publicity materials and reports for the Inter-religious Committee, but to what extent did she contribute to and share its bold vision of urban planning in Los Angeles? The Huntington Library not only holds material crucial to the development of my thesis, but is also close to the locale at the centre of my research. As an institution dedicated to recording the history of Southern California, the Huntington provides valuable opportunities for knowledge exchange, collaboration and learning lessons from the past. This fellowship will make an indispensable contribution to my project by offering access to essential research materials as well as access to the expertise of Huntington staff.
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