DAVID MOORE born: 1958 in Brentwood, Essex. studied: at Keble College Oxford University from 1978 to 1981. In 1990 he was awarded the Museums' Association Diploma in Museum Studies.

After three years as Researcher at Aberystwyth University, David Moore, MA(Oxon), began his museum work in the mid-1980s for the Dyfed Museum Services. In 1992, he was appointed Curator of the Brecknock Museum and Art Gallery in Brecon (click here). For nearly thirteen years, he has successfully run this museum in close cooperation with Powys County Council who fund the museum and the Brecknock Society & Museum Friends, who founded and owned the museum, and still own the Old Museum and the early artefacts. Since then the Museum has had several noteable successes, amongst them winning the Rural Wales Award in 2001 (click here) and the presentation of the Llangorse Lake discoveries, rare 9th Century artefacts, which went on display for the first time in 2004 (click here).

David Moore established such a good relationship with the Brecknock Society & Museum Friends that the Society decided to take up a number of initiatives. The Guide Book to the Museum was short-listed for the Gulbenkian prize. A Junior School History Prize of £4,400 was established and the Sir John Lloyd Memorial Lecture initiated - largest annual public history lecture in Wales. Any 'profits' from it are used to supplement the Musem's Junior School History Prize. Besides this the Roland Mathias literary prize was introduced. The Museum now owns an enhanced old and contemporary love spoon collection - second most important in Wales. Awards have also been received from the Welsh Language Board for the bi-lingual posters designed by David Moore and from the Council for the Protection for Rural Wales.

David paid much needed attention to the less well developed Art Gallery section of the museum and assembled one of the most important permanent regional art collection in Wales, with particular emphasis on contemporary art, unequalled in this part of the Principality. His exhibition programmes have attracted leading artists from all over Wales, and elsewhere e.g. Josef Herman, Ivor Davies, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, to name but a few. They have drawn a large number of people to the Museum and Art Gallery and enhanced its reputation considerably. Many pictures are sold. The exhibitions were a major factor in the Brecknock Museum and Art Gallery being the first museum in Mid and South Wales to become a partner of the National Museum and Art Galleries in the Sharing the Treasures scheme. In 2004 the Brecknock Museum & Art Gallery was chosen one of 350 museums in the UK out of 2,500 to be included in the book "Britain's Best Museums & Galleries".

One of the most outstanding achievements of David Moore's curatorship has been the acquisition of sponsorship. Improvements at the museum, structurally as well as in terms of organisation, major refurbishment and redevelopment, have cost around £400,000 and have almost entirely been financed by grants and donations, obtained by David Moore. They came from such organisations as the Brecknock Museum Art Trust, the European Regional Development Fund, the Welsh Tourist Board, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Art Collections Fund, the Victoria & Albert Museum Research Fund, Brecon Town Council, the Brecknock Society & Museum Friends and private donations.

Besides this, David Moore continues his research into the art works of the Pembrokeshire artist Ray Howard-Jones. He is in the process of making a professional change and plans to concentrate on freelance consultancy work in Art & Museum Collection Research & Development as well as on Exhibition Curatorship & Design. He will also read part-time for a M.Phil in Art History.

contact mail: davidmoore@phonecoop.coop


Publications:

2002 - 'David Jones's 1924-8 Watercolours: Petra Gill, Capel-y-ffin; Orchard, Capel-y-ffin; & Christ in the Garden' ; publ. in NACF 2002 Review

2004 - 'Josef Herman's 1949 Oil: Pen-y-bont Inn, Ystradgynlais'; publ. in NACF 2004 Review

2005 - 'Eric Ravilious's 1938 Watercolour: The Waterwheel'; publ. in NACF 2005 Review

2006 - 'David Jones's 1926 Watercolour: Y Twmpa - Capel'; publ. in The Art Fund 2006 Review

'The 2005 Buyer's Purchases', Contemporary Art Society for Wales 2006 Annual Report, 2007 (forthcoming) Notes on Contemporary Art Society for Wales website for 2005 buyer's purchases of works by: Mary Fogg, Bim Giardelli, Sally Matthews, Roy Powell, Islwyn Watkins, Sue Hiley Harris, Radovan Kraguly, Veronica Gibson, Megan Jones, Bill Mills, Susan Milne, Pip Woolf, Iwan Bala, Peter Bailey, William Brown, Robert Harding, Jeff Nuttall. (www.casw.org.uk)

2006 - 'Building a Significant Regional Art Collection: The Visual Arts at Brecknock Museum & Art Gallery, 1992-2005'; publ. in Brycheiniog XXXVIII, 2006, p103-129.

2007 - '56 Group at 50', Planet 180, December / January 2006-7, pp122-124 (National Library of Wales exhibition review)

2007 - 'Iwan Gwyn Parry', Galleries, January 2007, p11 (Martin Tinney Gallery exhibition review)

2007 - 'Bucharest: Art of a Changing City' , Planet 181, February / March 2007, pp 66-73 (Partly references exhibiting of work by Sue Hiley Harris in Romanian Triennial of Textile Arts, November 2006)

2007 - 'Arthur Giardelli Interviewed by David Moore', Film by Peter Telfer on DVD commissioned by Contemporary Art Society for Wales from Life Story, 2007.

2007 - 'Islwyn Watkins Interviewed by David Moore: Recollections of Jeff Nuttall, Bob Cobbing, My Own Mag, Writers' Forum, Group H & STigma in early Sixties London', Transcript of recording made in Brecon, 8th March 2007.(realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/my-own-mag/the my-own-mag community)

2007 - "Guide to the Breacon Beacons Art Trail - Eight Stones, Eight Artists: Exploring the Beacons Way Art Trail", published by Little Fish Press. (the eight selected artists are: Sally Matthews, Richard Renshaw, Desmond Harrison and Sue Hiley Harris, painter Megan Jones, watercolourist and print-maker Robert MacDonald, maker of artist books Shirley Jones and embroiderer Marcelle Davies. All the artists work in or near the National Park.

2007 - "Confluence", an exhibition catalogue containing text and photographs by David Moore about the artists Sue Hiley-Harries and Richard Renshaw, published by Makers Guild in Wales.

2007 - 'Tony Goble: Allegorical Painter & Champion of the Visual Arts in Wales', Obituary, Independent, Tuesday Ist May 2007, p.32.

2007 - Second edition of the above published separately by Brecknock Museum Art Trust, 2007 (forthcoming) with additional plates and appendices.

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