Selma Burke
3/28/2023 | 1m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Learn about Selma Burke, whose portrait of FDR likely inspired the back of the U.S. dime.
Born in Mooresville, Selma Burke was a groundbreaking sculptor and one of the few women represented in the Harlem Renaissance. Her portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt is likely the model for his image on the back of the U.S. dime. She is also known for her public sculptures of African American figures, including Duke Ellington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Booker T. Washington.
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The Uncommon Story: Notable North Carolinians is a local public television program presented by PBS NC
This series was produced with support from the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.
Selma Burke
3/28/2023 | 1m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Born in Mooresville, Selma Burke was a groundbreaking sculptor and one of the few women represented in the Harlem Renaissance. Her portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt is likely the model for his image on the back of the U.S. dime. She is also known for her public sculptures of African American figures, including Duke Ellington, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Booker T. Washington.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[upbeat jingle] - [Narrator] If you've never heard of Dr Selma Burke, just look at the back of a dime.
Historians believe the Mooresville Native's 1945 bronze plaque sculpture of President Franklin D Roosevelt is mirrored on the coin, although Selma never got proper credit for it.
Born in 1900, Burke's favorite childhood place was the riverbed, making things in the clay.
She once said "It was there in 1907 that I discovered me."
Her grandmother was an artist but her mom pushed marriage and nursing school.
Tragically, Selma's husband died a year after their vows, so she chased her dream to New York paying for art classes by modeling for students.
Burke studied sculpture in Vienna and Paris and received a master in fine arts at Columbia University.
She was praised by Matisse, received honors from President Carter, and was one of the few female artists represented in the Harlem Renaissance movement.
But Selma never forgot her one room, segregated schoolhouse and she used her fame to fight discrimination.
In her honor, a bus she sculpted was donated to her hometown library.
Burke would go on to start her own art schools in New York and then Pittsburgh.
At 70, she earned a doctorate degree, and at 80 Selma was still sculpting.
You can see her last monumental work in Charlotte, a bronze statue of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
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The Uncommon Story: Notable North Carolinians is a local public television program presented by PBS NC
This series was produced with support from the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources.