Jungle Camp
Artist
Maud Gatewood
American, 1934–2004
Date2000
MediumAcrylic on canvas
Dimensions72 x 60 in. (182.9 x 152.4 cm)
Frame: 73 1/2 x 61 1/2 in. (186.7 x 156.2 cm)
Frame: 73 1/2 x 61 1/2 in. (186.7 x 156.2 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineGift of Thomas S. Kenan III
Object number2004.6
On View
Not on viewOne of the most respected of North Carolina's artists, Maud Gatewood never followed trends or fashion but pursued a singular course through a half-century of radical change in the visual arts. Her paintings record the varied experiences of a wandering life. Writing on the back of the canvas, the artist wryly notes the origins of this picture: "Trapped in the Amazon with a bad leg."
Confined to a hut, she made the most of the opportunity. Jungle Camp is not so much about the lushness of the tropics as it is about illusion and the theater of painting. The artist teasingly unveils the scene, drawing back two lines of curtains. Our eyes thus move through a baffled, shaded space toward a sunlit outdoor - from a quiet, ordered interior to riotous jungle. In such paintings Gatewood is not offering us snapshots of her travels. She was no common tourist. Her travels gave color and vigor to her imagery, but they did not distract from her commitment to the basic intentions of art: to make sense of experience, if only provisionally, and to recast even the most incidental of moments into shared memory.
ProvenanceCreated Yanceyville, NC, 2000; collection of the artist; [Somerhill Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC]; Thomas S. Kenan III, Chapel Hill, 2001; given to NCMA, 2004.
Published ReferencesMax Halperen, [Somerhill Gallery review], Raleigh: The News & Observer (February 16, 2001), illus. [?].
"Maud Gatewood: Parting Glances," Raleigh: The News and Observer (November 14, 2004), mentioned 3G.
Lawrence J. Wheeler, "In Memoriam: Maud Gatewood," Preview: The Magazine of the North Carolina Museum of Art (March/April 2005), illus. (color) 6.
United States Embassy Copenhagen: ART in Embassies Exhibition (Washington, DC: ART in Embassies Program, U.S. Department of State, 2007), illus. (color), 13.
John W. Coffey, entry for Jungle Camp, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 542, illus. (color) 543.
Exhibition HistoryUnited States Embassy Copenhagen, ART in Embassies Program, July 14, 2006–February 6, 2009. Object Rights Statement
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