She never received credit for her portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt which was later featured on the US dime.In 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt sat for a portrait by a young African-American artist from Mooresville. That artist was Selma Burke. However, John R. Sinnock’s signature is on the dime, and he receives credit for the work while Burke’s portrait, which she spent two years working on, is only recognized as an inspiration and model for the final image used on the coin. According to Lisa E. Farrington, author of “Creating Their Own Image, The History of African-American Women Artists,” Sinnock made “barely perceptible alterations.” HONORS As well as a sculptor, Burke was also a lifelong student and educator, winning numerous awards and fellowships.
She earned her first degree from Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina and eventually graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia. She started her first art school in 1940, eventually starting her second in 1946, and opened the Selma Burke Art Center in Pittsburgh, which operated from 1968 to 1981. Burke is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She received several honorary doctorate degrees during her lifetime, including one awarded by Livingston College in 1970 and one from Spelman College in 1988. Milton Shapp, then-governor of Pennsylvania, declared July 29, 1975, Selma Burke Day in recognition of the artist's contributions to art and education.
Her papers and archive are in the collection of Spelman College. Burke was a member of the first group of women along with Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keefe, and Isabel Bishop to receive lifetime achievement awards from the Women's Caucus for Art, in 1979. She received the award from President Jimmy Carter in a private ceremony in the Oval Office. She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1983 and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Women's Award in 1987. She died in 1995 at the age of 94.
