The Rainbow Swash is a work by Corita Kent

Corita Kent

Corita Kent , aka Sister Mary Corita Kent, was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Kent was an artist and an educator who worked in Los Angeles and Boston. She worked almost exclusively with silkscreen and serigraphy, helping to establish it as a fine art medium...

 in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The rainbow design painted on a 140 feet (42.7 m) tall LNG storage tank

LNG storage tank

A liquefied natural gas storage tank or LNG storage tank is a specialized type of storage tank used for the storage of Liquefied Natural Gas. LNG storage tanks can be found in ground, above ground or in LNG carriers. The common characteristic of LNG Storage tanks is the ability to store LNG at the...

 is the largest copyrighted work of art in the world. Notably, the Swash appeared in the opening credits to the 2005 film Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch (2005 film)

Fever Pitch, which was released as The Perfect Catch outside of the United States and Canada, is a 2005 Farrelly brothers romantic comedy film. It is a remake of a 1997 British film of the same name. Both films are loosely based on the Nick Hornby book of the same name, a best-selling memoir in...

.

Description

Originally created in 1971, the Rainbow Swash comprises large streaks of rainbow colors over a natural gas storage tank on Dorchester's waterfront, located about two miles (3 km) south of Downtown Boston. The landmark 140 feet (42.7 m) design is highly visible from the Southeast Expressway and passed by thousands of commuters daily. The design was transferred to its present location in 1992
when the original LNG tank was torn down.

History

In 1971, then-Boston Gas Company president Eli Goldstone commissioned Corita Kent to paint the Rainbow Swash design on one of two adjacent LNG tanks facing Boston's Southeast Expressway. The original design was painted on an 8-inch (20 cm) scale model with 20 painters reproducing the work on the 140 feet (42.7 m) high tank.

Since the 1970s, the Rainbow Swash has been controversial. The mural was criticized as featuring a profile of Vietnamese Leader Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

's face in its blue stripe. Kent was a peace activist and some believe she was protesting the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, but Kent herself always denied embedding such a profile. In 1992, the original rainbow-painted LNG tank was torn down and the Rainbow Swash was recreated on the adjacent tank despite objections from veterans groups. However, the blue stripe is less pronounced in the 1992 reproduction.

In 2000, Boston Gas was acquired by Keyspan and the Keyspan logo replaced the Boston Gas logo under the rainbow. Keyspan was acquired and merged into National Grid plc

National Grid plc

National Grid plc is a multinational electricity and gas utility company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its principal activities are in the United Kingdom and northeastern United States and it is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world.National Grid is listed on...

and the National Grid logo was placed over the Keyspan logo in September 2007.

External links

• Artist Information: Corita Kent
• "WGBH switches on digital mural at new Brighton digs" by Donna Goodison, Boston Herald (Sept. 17, 2007)
• The Ho Chi Minh Memorial Gas Tank at Boston Online