Perhaps best known to Boston residents as the creator of the multi-color paint splashes on the Dorchester gas tanks along Interstate 93, Corita Kent (1918–1986) led a life nearly as colorful as her art. The activist nun, teacher and artist created scores of vivid screen prints in the 1960s, many of which had social and political overtones. Beginning September 3, a new exhibit at Harvard Art Museums titled Corita Kent and the Language of Pop re-casts Kent’s context within Pop Art, featuring more than 60 of her works alongside those of contemporaries like Andy Warhol, Jim Dine and Roy Lichtenstein. Far from presenting Kent as an outlier in the Pop crowd, this show places her squarely in the middle of this influential movement.

Photo: Corita Kent, The Juciest Tomato of All, 1964.