30 Facts About Selma Burke

Selma Hortense Burke was an American sculptor and a member of the Harlem Renaissance movement.

Selma Burke 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.

Selma Burke summed up her life as an artist, "I really live and move in the atmosphere in which I am creating".

Selma Burke was born on December 31,1900, in Mooresville, North Carolina, the seventh of 10 children of Reverend Neil and Mary Elizabeth Colfield Burke.

Selma Burke's father was an AME Church Minister who worked on the railroads for additional income.

Selma Burke's father died when she was twelve and in 1970 her mother was 101 years old.

Selma Burke attended Winston-Salem State University before graduating in 1924 from the St Agnes Training School for Nurses in Raleigh.

Selma Burke married a childhood friend, Durant Woodward, in 1928, although the marriage ended with his death less than a year later.

Selma Burke later moved to Harlem to work as a private nurse.

Selma Burke was employed as a private nurse to a wealthy heiress.

Selma Burke worked as a model in art classes to pay for that schooling.

Selma Burke returned in 1936 to study in Paris with Aristide Maillol.

One of her most significant works from this period is "Frau Keller", a portrait of a German-Jewish woman in response to the rising Nazi threat which would convince Selma Burke to leave Europe later that year.

Selma Burke used her art to make opportunities to bring people together.

In 1949 Selma Burke married architect Herman Kobbe, and moved with him to an artists' colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Kobbe died in 1955, but Selma Burke continued to live in her New Hope home until her death in 1995, at the age of 94.

Selma Burke taught at Livingstone College, Swarthmore College, and Harvard University, as well as Friends Charter School in Pennsylvania and Harlem Center in New York.

Selma Burke sculpted portraits of famous African-American figures as well as lesser-known subjects.

Selma Burke explored human emotion and family relationships in more expressionistic works.

Selma Burke worked in a wide variety of media including wood, brass, alabaster, and limestone.

Selma Burke's last monumental work, created in 1980 when she was 80 years old, is a bronze statue of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Selma Burke was among the artists featured at The National Urban League's inaugural exhibition at Gallery 62 in 1978.

Selma Burke had solo exhibitions at Princeton University and the Carnegie Museum, among other venues.

Selma Burke's work is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the James A Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Selma Burke is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Selma Burke received several honorary doctorate degrees during her lifetime, including one awarded by Livingston College in 1970 and one from Spelman College in 1988.

Selma Burke received the award from President Jimmy Carter in a private ceremony in the Oval Office.

Selma Burke 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.

Selma Burke's work was featured in the 2015 exhibition We Speak: Black Artists in Philadelphia, 1920s-1970s at the Woodmere Art Museum.

Selma Burke died at the age of 94 on August 29,1995, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where she had lived since the 1950s.