In 1968 and 1969, Corita created twenty-nine prints that she identified as “a set of heroes and sheroes.” Produced during a sabbatical from Immaculate Heart College and her subsequent departure from the Immaculate Heart of Mary order, the series reflects a key turning point in Corita’s artistic output. Unfettered by a formal affiliation with the Catholic Church, Corita took a bold and uncompromising stance on what she viewed as the major humanitarian issues facing the country.

The series responds directly to the Vietnam War, nuclear disarmament, political assassinations, and the civil rights and labor movements. For Corita, this historically charged moment called for a new visual language, and to tackle these topics in her art, she turned to the news. With a keen awareness of how the most politically and socially urgent issues of the day were being framed and disseminated through mass media, Corita juxtaposed imagery from photojournalism, editorials, and news coverage in periodicals like LIFE and Newsweek with quotations from Coretta Scott King, Leonard Cohen, Walt Whitman, Daniel Berrigan, and her students, among others.  

The works ultimately serve as a portrait of a nation that has lost its way, beset by internal struggles and embroiled in external conflicts. Yet, the prints also implore the viewer not to give in to despair and hopelessness. Taken as a whole, the heroes and sheroes series marks Corita’s striking artistic progression and underscores the ethos that informed her life and work—a belief in the power of collective action and finding joy in the everyday.