Morna

Remembered as one of the most important twentieth century artists from North Carolina, Maud Gatewood experimented with a breadth of styles and subjects. Highly individualistic, Gatewood was reluctant to define her aesthetic philosophy, insisting that “her paintings were her statement.”

As a young girl in Yanceyville, North Carolina, Maud Gatewood’s parents encouraged her free-spirited, close relationship with nature and her penchant for art. Following an art degree from the Woman’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (now UNCG) and an MFA in painting from Ohio State University, Gatewood received a Fulbright to study in Vienna in 1963. Upon her return to the United States, she accepted a faculty position at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. Over the course of her academic career, she would also teach at five other universities. She exhibited throughout the Southeast during her lifetime, many times in major exhibitions, and is now held in museum collections around the country.