Y Tabernacl

Heol Penrallt

Machynlleth

Powys SY20 8AJ

Tel 01654 703355

info@moma.machynlleth.org.uk

www.moma.machynlleth.org.uk

Romanticism in the Welsh Landscape

A major loan exhibition at MOMA Machynlleth

19 March to 18 June 2016

WILSON ˑ TURNER ˑ COTMAN ˑ JONES ˑ RAVILIOUS ˑ RICHARDS ˑ

SUTHERLAND ˑ CRAXTON ˑ COCKRILL ˑ TRESS ˑ SEAR ˑ KLUZ

John Piper, Llanthony Abbey, 1941 (National Library of Wales)

Romanticism in the Welsh Landscape is one of the most substantial

exhibition ever held at MOMA Machynlleth. Through over sixty works

loaned from public and private collections it explores the seminal

influence that Wales has had on Romantic approaches to landscape

from the mid eighteenth century to the present. Many of the works

included have never been shown in public.

The exhibition includes works by the father of British landscape painting,

Richard Wilson, and his disciple, Thomas Jones. Both can be seen as

among the precursors of landscape painters who sought to show the

particularities of real rather than idealised landscapes and evoke the

spirit of place. A generation later it was in Wales that Turner and Cotman

as young men experienced for the first time the grandeur of the ‘Sublime’

and began to find their personal artistic visions. The mountains,

waterfalls, ruins, coasts and mines of Wales became subjects for a

succession of expressive landscape artists who sought to convey

through landscape painting the power of nature, the immensity of

Creation and the destruction wrought by time. voices, the Welsh

landscape has inspired numerous artists.

Thomas Jones, The Southern Extremity of the Carneddau, 1795, National Library of Wales

In the mid twentieth-century, Neo-Romantic artists such as Graham

Sutherland, John Piper and their younger followers were inspired by the

mountains, coasts and estuaries of Wales to cross-fertilise the

achievements of Romantic landscape painters with Modernist ideas

derived from Surrealism, Expressionism and abstraction. Sutherland and

Piper spent formative periods in Wales, while John Craxton, John Minton

and other followed them to find stimulus in the wild scenery of the

country. A few artists such as Josef Herman and David Jones made

homes in Wales for a time and a generation of Welsh-born painters

absorbed a Neo-Romantic vocabulary, including Ceri Richards, John

Elwyn, Ray Howard-Jones and Leslie Moore.

Helen Sear, Chameleon, video, 2013

In the last thirty years, the Welsh landscape has continued to nourish

visionary artists who have used a range of media from watercolour to

video. Among the older generation are Arthur Giardelli, Roger Cecil and

Bert Isaac, whose work presented ideas about the Welsh landscape

through abstract idioms. Others have placed narrative subjects in Welsh

contexts, such as Ivor Davies and Clive Hicks-Jenkins, or have

represented the landscape expressively, such as Peter Prendergast,

Glenys Cour, David Tress and Philip Nicol. Some younger contemporary

artists such as Tim Davies, Ed Kluz, Dalit Leon and Helen Sear

reference landscape in painting, photography, video and installation.

Some contemporary works will be for sale.

The exhibition is curated by Dr Peter Wakelin.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 19 March. The galleries are open

Monday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm.

Please note: the contemporary artists' section of the exhibition will be

closed for the Machynlleth Comedy Festival from April 28 until May 4.

Notes for the Editor.

The Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth (MOMA, MACHYNLLETH) was established in

1991 as MOMA WALES alongside The Tabernacle in Machynlleth, Powys. It is owned and

run by Machynlleth Tabernacle Trust which is funded by grants and public donations.

Throughout the year the galleries show contemporary art, featuring leading artists from

Wales, works from the growing Tabernacle Collection, and in August selected entries from the

Tabernacle Art Competition. Many of the works of art are for sale. The current exhibition

programme is supported by the Arts Council of Wales.

In May 2015 "The Tannery" was opened after many years of fundraising and restoration of

this historic industrial building. This contains two galleries, connected to the main building by

a bridge, one of which is specifically for sculpture. This brings the number of exhibition

spaces up to seven.

Contact:

Lucinda Middleton, Richard and Ann Mayou Fund Curator

lucinda@moma.machynlleth.org.uk 01654 703355