The Museum of Modern Art in Machynlleth has grown steadily over more than 30 years to become the magnificent set of galleries and auditorium that visitors enjoy today. It is a story of hard work and fortuitous coincidence. It is run by a charitable trust funded by grants and public donations. Throughout the year the galleries show contemporary art, featuring leading artists primarily from Wales. Many of the works of art are for sale and raise money for the museum through a small commission. Paintings, drawings and sculpture from the Trust’s own Tabernacle Collection are shown in rotation in a series of temporary exhibitions. In August expert judges, and then the public, choose the winners of the Tabernacle Art Competition. Meanwhile the auditorium, in an old chapel, hosts the annual Machynlleth Festival of music and Welsh culture in August along with a variety of concerts, plays and other performances throughout the year, including hosting the Machynlleth Comedy Festival in the Spring.
The story began when Andrew Lambert bought the former Wesleyan Chapel and adjacent land in 1984. His idea was to create a centre for performing arts. He wrote:
“On a late afternoon in November 1984 I was shown into the Wesleyan chapel by the caretaker. There was damp and dry rot; but, as the evening sun streamed in through the cracked windows, it occurred to me that not only was the building very beautiful, it was also very theatrical. Only the people were now missing.”
To achieve Andrew’s vision the building needed extensive renovation. A charitable company – Machynlleth Tabernacle Trust – was set up to run the venue. Y Tabernacl opened on 11 October 1986 as a beautiful auditorium with amazing acoustics. Minimal changes were made to the layout of the chapel, most of the pews remained in place and a stage was created at the front. The Trust made use of the adjacent land to build a free-standing toilet block for visitors with a Green Room above for performers. The first Machynlleth Festival took place in 1987.
Just in front of the Tabernacle entrance was a grocer’s shop with living accommodation above called Harvey House. The Trust were able to buy the shop with the help of a generous loan. The building provided the Trust with a valuable street frontage on the main road through the town. A further 5 years of fundraising allowed Harvey House to be converted into the first art gallery spaces, supported by a small grant from the Development Board for Rural Wales. It was renamed the Ellis Building after Tom Ellis of Bala (who had expressed the hope that chapels would become centres of culture and not just places of Sunday worship) and the first art exhibition was held in May 1992. The museum was known then as MOMA WALES, changing its name to MOMA Machynlleth in 2015. The Ellis building contained a gallery on the ground floor, 2 small galleries on the first floor and an office on the second floor. Early exhibitions included Cefyn Burgess and Craigie Aitchison RA but it was a show by a group of artists which included the renowned Peter Blake: The Brotherhood of Ruralists, which really brought the museum to public attention.
The arts centre now consisted of 3 separate buildings in desperate need of some means of linking them together, especially in the winter! The Trust had a linking building designed by architect David Thomas and began to search for the financial help to achieve their vision. In the autumn of 1992 the Trustees of the Foundation for Sport and the Arts offered a wonderful donation of £100,000 which gave the Trust leverage to bring in the necessary funds for the building from the Welsh Office Rural Initiative and the European Regional Development Fund. As part of the same development project the auditorium was equipped with simultaneous translation facilities, a new sound and lighting system, dressing rooms, a recording studio and a language laboratory, all of which were completed within six months. Lord and Lady Hooson opened the magnificent new Owen Owen Building on 3rd July 1994 and, as if by a miracle, the Chapman Trust donated a lift only months later. This created a Foyer for the auditorium with a bar, where exhibitions could be held along with a beautiful, wood-beamed gallery above it which enabled a wider range of artists to exhibit including: Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Shani Rhys James and Kevin Sinnott.
The Trust did not rest on its laurels for long; in 1997 the forecourt and entrance to the auditorium were redesigned to create level access into the museum and make the approach to Y Tabernacl more welcoming. The beautiful slate by artist Meic Watts is set off by metalwork designed and produced by artist Ann Catrin Evans, who later went on to design the door hands for the Millennium Centre. Further grants were obtained for this work for the FSA, Powys County Council, CADW, Arts Council of Wales and the Wales Tourist Board.
Then, the following year, the Trust received a wonderful bequest from the estate of Nora Gibbs and Mollie Winterburn. This enabled the purchase of the building on the other side of the of the chapel forecourt – Tŷ Llyfnant. This was converted for use as an artist’s studio and music teaching and practise rooms, while the shop at the front was rented out for continued retail use. The studio is used by artists in residence, most recently Deirdre McKenna from Ireland, and by Aberystwyth University Lifelong Learning department for art classes.
Soon after this, a cheque given anonymously and a legacy from the late John Silvanus Davies (Mr John Davies the China Shop) made it possible to covert the 2 small galleries in the Ellis Building into one spacious gallery, which is now know as the Pulpit Room. Visitors find this confusing today because the old pulpit is not actually in this room, but originally it was and the name has stuck! This self-contained area lends itself to holding loans from other museums and galleries which means that works can be brought to Machynlleth that visitors might not otherwise see, such as the James Dickson Innes exhibition in 2014 which included works from the Tate, National Museum of Wales and private collectors.
A few years later the Trust had the opportunity to purchase an historic industrial building adjacent to the back of the museum, on the other side from the Tabernacle. This old tannery was in very poor condition and it took 12 years of fundraising and tireless work by J B Roberts & Son before it became two beautiful galleries: the Tannery Gallery and the Sculpture Space, connected to the main building by a bridge across the public footpath. The Tannery was opened in May 2014 with an exhibition by well-known sculptor David Nash RA. On its completion the building was awarded the CPRW Rural Wales Award. The Sculpture Space has played host to some wonderful works by artists such as Alison Lochhead, Glenn Morris, Robert Bryce Muir and Richard Deacon. This development brought the number of exhibition spaces up to seven!
Meanwhile, in 2013, a generous donation from the Richard and Ann Mayou Fund allowed the Trust to appoint a professional curator on a 5 year contract. One of the key aims of this post was to achieve Museum Accreditation for the museum (a scheme which sets nationally agreed standards for museums in the UK) and its growing Tabernacle Collection. After much work behind the scenes MOMA Machynlleth was awarded Museum Accreditation by the Museums, Archives and Libraries Division of the Welsh Government in November 2015.
With this drive to improve standards came obligations to improve the care of the Tabernacle Collection and so, with this in mind, the Trust grasped the opportunity to buy the house next door, 1 Glasfryn, in 2016 to develop into a state of the art store for the collection. Fundraising for this project is still ongoing.
As MOMA Machynlleth and Y Tabernacl look to the future it is important to acknowledge the driving forces behind these institutions alongside Andrew Lambert, Captain Richard and Mrs Ruth Lambert, whose commitment and vision have created this wonderful arts centre in rural mid-Wales, along with great support from grant-making charitable trusts, the Friends of The Tabernacle and a small army of fabulous volunteers who act as attendants in the museum and stewards for performances in the auditorium.
Words: Lucinda Middleton
Pictures: Robert Price
Feature image: MOMA Machynlleth (Visit Wales)
First published in Welsh Country Magazine May – Jun 2018
