Born
December 31, 1900
Died
August 29, 1995
Country
United States of America
A gifted sculptor, Selma Burke was also a tireless educator, advocate, and role model for aspiring Black artists.
Sculpting started as child’s play for Burke. As a seven-year-old girl (and one of 10 children) digging in the dirt of her parents’ farm in Mooresville, North Carolina, Burke squeezed some wet clay through her fingers one day and grasped a lifelong obsession. “It was there in 1907,” she later reflected, “that I discovered me.”
Burke’s parents encouraged her interest in art, but they also insisted that she master a more marketable profession. The sculptor went along with that view, attending Slater Industrial and State Normal School in Winston-Salem, Saint Agnes School of Nursing in Raleigh, and Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. Armed with a R.N. degree, she moved to New York City in 1924 and found work as a nurse.
Yet Burke could not shake her fascination with molding raw materials into likenesses of the world. Every spare moment found her with a chunk of brass, stone, or wood in her hands, sculpting historical figures and nudes. She received numerous fellowships as her work became known. A grant from the Rosenwald Foundation in 1935 and from the Boehler Foundation in 1936 freed her to study under famous sculptors Michael Povolny in Vienna and Aristide Maillol in Paris.
In 1941, Burke earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City. As a teacher, she conveyed her passion for sculpture to up-and-coming artists for the next 40 years. She taught at the Harlem Community Art Center and founded the Selma Burke Art School in New York and the Selma Burke Art Center in Pittsburgh.
You may have a bit of Burke art in your pocket: Her 1945 bronze plaque of President Franklin D. Roosevelt served as the model for the relief profile that graces the U.S. dime.
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She was the recipient of a 1933 Harmon Foundation award. |
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Her second husband was writer Claude McKay. |
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She created a sculpture of Duke Ellington. |
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Fasten your smock, get out your art supplies, and prepare to get your hands dirty. Examine the physics behind Alexander Calder’s mobiles, the symbolism in the botany rendered in renaissance paintings, and the careful patience used in weaving a wampum belt in this exploration of a wide range of arts.
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Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; Capital One; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ednah Root Foundation; Harman Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The Kiplinger Foundation; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; The Markow Totevy Foundation; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives;
Prince Charitable Trusts; Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A. J. Stolwijk; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Volkswagen Group of America; Jackie Washington; GRoW @ Annenberg and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family; Wells Fargo; and generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts..
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