* SELMA HORTENSE BURKE (AMERICAN 1900 - 1995),
GIRL, PRONE
bas-relief sculpture, signed and dated '75
46cm x 32cm
Note: Dr Selma Burke was a world-renowned sculptor and painter whose relief plaque portrait of President Franklin D Roosevelt appears on the dime. One of ten children of an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister in rural North Carolina, Burke first learned to sculpt using clay from a nearby river. Encouraged by her mother to pursue a practical career, Burke trained as a certified nurse. While working as a nurse in New York, she became involved in the Harlem Renaissance and served as a sculptor's model, all the while preparing to become an artist. In 1941, she received an M.F.A. at Columbia University and later studied art in Europe. Primarily a sculptor, Burke crafted figures of rugged beauty from wood, bronze, or stone, hewn in a style of almost classical realism. She sculpted several celebrities, including Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and Pearl S. Buck. The bronze statue of Buck, Uplift, was dedicated at the Pearl S. Buck House in 1991. She also painted in watercolour, oil, and acrylics. A committed educator, the bearer of two earned and eight honorary doctorates, Burke established two art schools while teaching at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. She also taught at the Solebury School and several other institutions. “One of the most notable sculptors of the twentieth century” according to the National Women’s History Museum, the celebrated artist, educator, and self-described “people’s sculptor.” Selma Burke is celebrated for her lifelong commitment to the art of sculpture, to art education and for her significance in the Harlem Renaissance. Burke achieved remarkable success as a Black woman sculptor at a time when few female or Black artists, and even fewer Black female artists, were able to achieve any success or recognition in the United States.