BRAHM Receives Gift of a Painting “Early Morning Early June,” by Maud Gatewood

A black and grey logo

Description automatically generated

GSK, a global biopharma company, has gifted a work of art to the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum (BRAHM). The gift is a six-panel polyptych, entitled “Early Morning Early June,” by iconic North Carolina artist Maud Gatewood, which will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, “The Hard Edge & The Soft Line: A Retrospective of Maud Gatewood.” The exhibition will be on view in the Fort, Atwell, and Rankin East Galleries of the Museum from June 28, 2024, through January 5, 2025.

Maud Gatewood, Early Morning Early June, 1988, acrylic on canvas, 60″ x 306″, Gift of art from GSK, BRAHM Permanent Collection 2024.2.1, photographed by Joshua White.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. They have a long-standing presence in North Carolina, and one of their two corporate hubs in the United States is located in Durham, North Carolina. For more information, visit gsk.com.

In 1988, Joe Rowand of Somerhill Gallery in Durham, representing Maud Gatewood, was scheduled to meet with GSK executives at Research Triangle Park (RTP) with the hope of securing the sale of a Gatewood painting for their offices. 

The artist had a different idea. Gatewood called Rowand and told him to hold off on selling the painting. She was staying in Wrightsville Beach on the North Carolina coast and had taken a walk that morning.

Upon returning to her hotel for breakfast, on a paper placemat, she sketched a six-panel scene of the ocean, umbrellas, and people on the beach. Each panel had a different horizon line but touched when the paintings were viewed next to each other. Gatewood faxed the drawing to Rowand, who took it to the executive meeting at GSK that afternoon where it was received with excitement.

The six panels were not originally hung together at GSK. Instead, they were placed individually between doors along a hallway to the company library. Years later, after the sale of the building housing the paintings, the GSK Art Committee brought the art out of storage in a series of exhibitions called “Into the Light.”

The paintings were also shown separately in an exhibit called “Maud’n’Art.” Afterward, the panels were permanently installed in the RTP offices and, for the first time, hung together with the horizon lines touching.

“The introduction of this series of paintings by Gatewood seals her legacy at BRAHM,” Maria Saterbo, chair of BRAHM’s Permanent Collection Committee remarked. “I can imagine generations of High Country residents and visitors enjoying these works.”

This 1988 postmodern work will be made available by BRAHM to other museums creating exhibitions of this period.

Maud Gatewood (1934–2004) remains a central figure in the art history of North Carolina and America. A painter of exacting technique with a keen eye for composition and cultural commentary, her pictures captured the Carolinas—and the world beyond—across much of the 20th century.

A native of Yanceyville in Caswell County, North Carolina, her paintings reveal rural landscapes and people in the midst of transformation while cleverly framing the experience of modern life with acerbic wit and a wealth of empathy.

“The Hard Edge & The Soft Line” is a major undertaking by BRAHM. It is a comprehensive examination of Gatewood’s career, showing the evolution of her work as well as her significant contributions, as an artist and educator, to art in North Carolina and the region.

All visitors to “The Hard Edge & The Soft Line” will receive a printed copy of an image from the exhibition and a QR code to take them to a digital guide. This supports BRAHM’s commitment to provide free admission to in-person visitors and free access to online resources.

With the collaboration of six public institutions and six private collections, coupled with BRAHM’s Permanent Collection, the exhibition will feature approximately 40 works that represent the breadth of Gatewood’s career. Included on the checklist are loans from the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh), Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro), Gregg Museum of Art & Design (Raleigh), Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem), the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (Charlotte), and Guilford College (Greensboro).

For more information, visit blowingrockmuseum.org/see/gatewood