Selma Hortense Burke (December 31, 1900 – August 29, 1995) was an American
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
and a member of the
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...
movement. Burke is best known for a
bas relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
portrait of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
which may have been the model for his image on the obverse of the
dime.
She described herself as "a people's sculptor" and created many pieces of
public art
Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...
, often portraits of prominent
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
figures like
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D ...
,
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune (; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, Philanthropy, philanthropist, Humanitarianism, humanitarian, Womanism, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in ...
and
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite#United S ...
.
In 1979, she was awarded the
Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award
The Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award was established under the presidency of Lee Ann Miller (1978–80). Joan Mondale, artist and wife of vice-president Walter Mondale, helped to secure approval for a national award honoring women ...
.
She summed up her life as an artist, "I really live and move in the atmosphere in which I am creating".
Biography
Selma Burke was born on December 31, 1900, in
Mooresville,
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
, the seventh of 10 children of Reverend Neil and Mary Elizabeth Colfield Burke.
Her father was an
AME Church
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. It cooperates with other Methodist ...
Minister who worked on the railroads for additional income. Her father died when she was twelve and in 1970 her mother was 101 years old.
As a child, she attended a one-room segregated schoolhouse, and often played with the riverbed clay found near her home.
She would later describe the feeling of squeezing the clay through her fingers as a first encounter with sculpture, saying "It was there in 1907 that I discovered me." Burke's interest in sculpture was encouraged by her maternal grandmother, a painter, although her mother thought she should pursue a more financially stable career.
"You can't make a living at that," Burke recalls her mother saying about her desire to study art.
Burke attended
Winston-Salem State University before graduating in 1924 from the
St. Agnes Training School for Nurses in
Raleigh
Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...
. She married a childhood friend, Durant Woodward, in 1928, although the marriage ended with his death less than a year later.
She later moved to
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
to work as a private nurse.
She was employed as a private nurse to a wealthy heiress. This heiress later became a patron of Burke and helped her become financially stable during the great depression.
Harlem Renaissance and education
After moving to New York City in 1935, Burke began art classes at
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...
. She also worked as a model in art classes to pay for that schooling. In 1935, during this time, she also became involved with the
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African-American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ti ...
cultural movement through her marriage with the writer
Claude McKay
Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay OJ (September 15, 1890See Wayne F. Cooper, ''Claude McKay, Rebel Sojourner In The Harlem Renaissance'' (New York, Schocken, 1987) p. 377 n. 19. As Cooper's authoritative biography explains, McKay's family predate ...
, with whom she shared an apartment in the
Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, or Midtown West on real estate listings, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, ...
neighborhood of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
.
The relationship was brief and tumultuous – McKay would destroy her clay models when he did not find the work to be up to his standards – but it introduced Burke to an artistic community that would support her burgeoning career. Burke began teaching for the
Harlem Community Arts Center under the leadership of sculptor
Augusta Savage, and would go on to work for the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
on the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...
.
One of her
WPA works, a bust of
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite#United S ...
, was given to Frederick Douglass High School in Manhattan in 1936.
Burke traveled to
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
twice in the 1930s, first on a
Rosenwald fellowship to study sculpture in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
in 1933-34. She returned in 1936 to study in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
with
Aristide Maillol
Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaking, printmaker.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford ...
. While in Paris she met
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
, who praised her work.
One of her most significant works from this period is "Frau Keller" (1937), a portrait of a
German-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...
woman in response to the rising
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
threat which would convince Burke to leave Europe later that year.
With the onset of World War II, Burke chose to work in a factory as a truck driver for the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was her opinion that, during the war, "artists should get out of their studios."
After returning to the United States, Burke won a graduate school scholarship to
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, where she would receive a
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.)
is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...
degree in 1941.
Teaching and later life
In 1940 Burke founded the Selma Burke School of Sculpture in New York City.
She was committed to teaching art. She opened the Selma Burke Art School in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 1946, and later opened the Selma Burke Art Center in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
.
Open from 1968 to 1981, the center "was an original art center that played an integral role in the Pittsburgh art community," offering courses ranging from studio workshops to puppetry classes.
Burke used her art to make opportunities to bring people together. In Mooresville, black children were banned from use of the public library. With her rising fame, Burke chose to donate a bust of a local doctor on the condition that the ban be removed. The town accepted.
In 1949 Burke married architect Herman Kobbe, and moved with him to an
artists' colony in
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,612 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. New Hope is located approximately north of Philadelphia, and lies on the west b ...
.
Kobbe died in 1955, but Burke continued to live in her New Hope home until her death in 1995, at the age of 94.
She taught at
Livingstone College,
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...
, and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, as well as
Friends Charter School in Pennsylvania and Harlem Center in New York.
Sculpture
Selma Burke sculpted portraits of famous African-American figures as well as lesser-known subjects. She also explored human emotion and family relationships in more expressionistic works.
While she admired the
abstract modernists
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and social issues were all aspects of this moveme ...
, her work was more concerned with rendering the symbolic human form in ways both dignified and symbolic.
She worked in a wide variety of media including wood, brass,
alabaster
Alabaster is a mineral and a soft Rock (geology), rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word ''alabaster''. In archaeology, the term ''alab ...
, and
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
.
Burke's public sculpture pieces include a bust of
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D ...
at the Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee, as well as works on display at the Hill House Center in Pittsburgh, the
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research library of the New York Public Library (NYPL) and an archive repository for information on people of African descent worldwide. Located at 515 Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) be ...
in New York City,
Atlanta University
Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded on September19, 1865, as Atlanta University, it was the first HBCU in the Southe ...
,
Spelman College
Spelman College is a Private college, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia ...
, and the
Smithsonian Museum of American Art
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...
. Her last monumental work, created in 1980 when she was 80 years old, is a bronze statue of
Martin Luther King, Jr. in
Charlotte, N.C.
Burke was among the artists featured at The
National Urban League's inaugural exhibition at Gallery 62 in 1978. She had solo exhibitions at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
and the
Carnegie Museum, among other venues. Her work is held in the collections of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...
, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
,
and the James A. Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
Portrait of F.D.R.
Burke's best-known work is a
portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...
honoring
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
and the
Four Freedoms. In 1943, she competed in a national contest to win a commission for the sculpture, created from sketches made during a 45-minute sitting with Roosevelt at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
.
Burke herself "wrote to Roosevelt to request a live sitting, to which the president generously agreed, scheduling the first of two sittings on February 22, 1944."
The President died before the third such appointment could be met. His wife
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt ( ; October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, first lady of the United States, during her husband Franklin D ...
objected to how young Burke chose to present him, but she responded by saying, "This profile is not for today, but for tomorrow and all time."
When asked about her experience sketching the president, "she said he wiggled too much when she began to sketch him that day. She told him to sit still and he did." The 3.5-by-2.5-foot
plaque was completed in 1944 and unveiled by
President Harry S. Truman in September 1945 at the
Recorder of Deeds Building in
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, where it still hangs today.
A number of sources contend that
John R. Sinnock's obverse design on the
Roosevelt dime was adapted from Burke's plaque
even though Sinnock denied that Burke's portrait was an influence, pointing to his earlier work that predated Burke's.
[Yanchunas, Dom. "The Roosevelt Dime at 60." ''COINage Magazine'', February 2006.] Sinnock's 1933 presidential medal for Roosevelt bears a striking resemblance to the 1946 dime, with Roosevelt facing the opposite direction. Roosevelt's 1941 inaugural medal, which Sinnock was involved in designing, also resembles the 1946 dime. Both the 1933 and 1941 medals predate Burke's bas relief.
File:Selma Burke - Untitled (Woman and Child).jpg, Untitled (Woman and Child), 1950
File:Archives of American Art - Selma Burke - 3130.jpg, Burke, left, presenting her bust of Samuel Huntington (1938) to the principal of Samuel Huntington Junior High School in Jamaica, Queens
File:"Mary Holiday" - NARA - 559051.jpg, Bas-relief of Mary Charlton Holiday (1945) at the Iredell County Library, NC.
File:"Mary Bethune" - NARA - 559050.jpg, Bust of Mary McLeod Bethune
File:Roosevelt plaque.jpg, The Franklin Roosevelt plaque in the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington.
Honors
Burke is an honorary member of
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. () is a List of African-American fraternities, historically African American Fraternities and sororities, sorority. The organization was founded by college-educated women dedicated to public service with an emp ...
sorority.
She received several
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...
degrees during her lifetime, including one awarded by
Livingston College in 1970 and one from
Spelman College
Spelman College is a Private college, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia ...
in 1988.
Milton Shapp, then-governor of Pennsylvania, declared July 29, 1975, Selma Burke Day in recognition of the artist's contributions to art and education. Her papers and archive are in the collection of Spelman College.
Burke was a member of the first group of women – along with
Louise Nevelson
Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, ...
,
Alice Neel,
Georgia O'Keeffe
Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...
, and
Isabel Bishop
Isabel Bishop (March 3, 1902 – February 19, 1988) was an American painter and graphic artist. Bishop studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League of New York, where she would later become an instructor. She was most notable fo ...
– to receive
lifetime achievement awards from the
Women's Caucus for Art
The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization based in New York City, which supports women artists, art historians, students, educators, and museum professionals. The WCA holds exhibitions and conferences to promo ...
, in 1979. She received the award from President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...
in a private ceremony in the
Oval Office
The Oval Office is the formal working space of the president of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.
The oval room has three lar ...
. She received a
Candace Award from the
National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1983, the
Pearl S. Buck Foundation Women's Award in 1988, and the ''Essence'' Magazine Award in 1989.
Her work was featured in the 2015 exhibition ''
We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s'' at the
Woodmere Art Museum
Woodmere Art Museum, located in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has a collection of paintings, prints, sculpture and photographs focusing on artists from the Delaware Valley and includes works by Thomas Pollock Anshutz, ...
.
Death
Selma Burke died at the age of 94 on August 29, 1995, in
New Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,612 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. New Hope is located approximately north of Philadelphia, and lies on the west b ...
, where she had lived since the 1950s.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Entry for Selma Burkeon the
Union List of Artist Names
The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary, which by 2018 contained over 300,000 artists and over 720,000 names for them, as well as other information about artist ...
Selma Burke's entry on the African-American Registry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burke, Selma
1900 births
1995 deaths
People from Mooresville, North Carolina
Artists from Pittsburgh
African-American sculptors
Sculptors from North Carolina
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Delta Sigma Theta members
20th-century American sculptors
Federal Art Project artists
African-American women artists
Sculptors from Pennsylvania
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American artists
20th-century American women sculptors
African-American women sculptors
American women sculptors