Selma Burke

Selma Burke
Burke with her portrait bust of
Booker T. Washington, c. 1935
Born
Selma Hortense Burke

(1900-12-31)December 31, 1900
Mooresville, North Carolina, United States
DiedAugust 29, 1995(1995-08-29) (aged 94)
NationalityAmerican
EducationColumbia University, Winston-Salem State University
Known forSculpture
AwardsWomen's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award, 1979

Selma Hortense Burke (December 31, 1900 – August 29, 1995) was an American sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement.[1] Burke is best known for a bas relief portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt which may have been the model for his image on the obverse of the dime.[2] She described herself as "a people's sculptor" and created many pieces of public art, often portraits of prominent African-American figures like Duke Ellington, Mary McLeod Bethune and Booker T. Washington.[3][4] In 1979, she was awarded the Women's Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award.[5] She summed up her life as an artist, "I really live and move in the atmosphere in which I am creating".[6]

  1. ^ "Burke, Selma". Oxford Reference. Oxford University Press. 2007. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195373219.001.0001. ISBN 9780195373219.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Wallace, Andy (September 1, 1995). "Selma Burke, 94, Black Sculptor Whose Profile Of Fdr Graces Dime". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  4. ^ Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (December 19, 2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. ISBN 9781135638825.
  5. ^ Djossa, Christina Ayele (January 17, 2018). "Who Really Designed the American Dime?". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  6. ^ Carney Smith, Jessie (1992). "Selma Hortense Burke". Notable Black American Women. Gale. ISBN 978-0-8103-9177-2.