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Summary

Photograph of Selma R. Bortner. Image courtesy of the artist. James A. Michener Art Museum archives.

"For me, being an artist was always a question of survival. I could not survive in this world if I could not do something creative. It's a commitment that I made when I was a child. I knew from the first time I could think about it that I wanted to be an artist."
-Selma Bortner

An innovative printmaker and admired art professor at Bucks County Community College, Selma Bortner drew upon folklore and myth to explore her autobiography, current events, and social justice. Born in Cleveland, Ohio to immigrants from Ukraine, Bortner and her family moved to Philadelphia, where she later attended Temple University’s Tyler School of Art. She completed advanced study at the University of the Arts, the Graphic Sketch Club, the Print Club, and the Cheltenham Center for the Arts. In the 1950s and ‘60s, she taught at local schools in Pennsbury, Bristol, and Neshaminy and married former Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Oscar S. Bortner (1920-2015) in 1951. She joined the Bucks County Community College faculty as an instructor in 1968, retiring as assistant professor emerita in 1991.

Bortner was a highly experimental and inventive printmaker, often combining different techniques and creating much of her materials, including paper, from scratch. She frequently used cut linoleum or textured fabric adhered to a cardboard support, known as a collograph, as a printing medium. When she lacked access to a printing press early on in her career, Bortner ran over prints with her car; this approach, unfortunately, proved unsuccessful. She often hand-colored and altered her plates between each printing, resulting in a series of unique works.

In 1986, Bortner was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her Aida series, named after the opera by Guiseppe Verdi, is a deeply personal response to this experience. Though she successfully won her fight against the cancer, she felt marred after a mastectomy. The central figure in Aida and the Mirror scrutinizes her fragmented reflection in the mirror while the surrounding animals recognize her as whole and comfort her. Bortner claimed to have been born a feminist, and she spoke of Aida and the Mirror as emblematic of the self-criticism women artists undergo when struggling to be taken seriously in a male-dominated field. Throughout the Aida series, Bortner represents herself as vulnerable and courageous as she recovers her confidence and health.

Bortner’s work confronts challenging issues like domestic abuse, immigration, and international conflict head-on with bold and colorful, graphic imagery that remains relevant and impactful today. Her work has been exhibited internationally and locally, including at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Bucks County Invitational I (1997), A Legacy Preserved: The First Decade of Collecting at the James A. Michener Art Museum (1998), A Celebration of Voices: The 25 Anniversary of A Woman’s Place (2002), Selma Bortner: Body of Work (2004-2005), Art Speaks: Celebrating the Bucks County Intermediate Unit Collection (2010-2011), Parting Gifts: Artists Honor Bruce Katsiff,Director/CEO, 1989-2012 (2012), and Selma Bortner: The Journey (2020).

Click here for an interview with the artist.

Click here for a conversation between Selma Bortner and Paul Keene.

Photograph of Selma R. Bortner. Image courtesy of the artist. James A. Michener Art Museum archives.

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