Ice Age Art Now is a British Museum partnership with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and Bradford District Museums & Galleries, opening at Cliffe Castle Museum on 21st June.
Running from 21st June until 14th September at Cliffe Castle Museum, the exhibition will showcase work by people that lived in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago, alongside pieces by Rembrandt, Matisse and Maggi Hambling to highlight similarities in art separated by thousands of years.
The exhibition has been launched as part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture programme, alongside other shows, art installments and events taking place in the city throughout the year.
As the climate warmed at the end of the Ice Age there was an increase in the production of drawings, sculptures, decorated tools and weapons, jewellery and complex patterns, including small-scale engravings on bone, antler, ivory and stone, which were created alongside the images found on cave walls. These drawings depict the animals that would have been relied upon for food and materials, such as bison, horse, ibex and reindeer.
Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said: “I am keen for the British Museum to be a lending library for the world – so it is fantastic to be able to announce this new exhibition, as part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture programme. Having grown up in West Yorkshire, the partnership with Bradford District Museums & Galleries is particularly meaningful to me – and I am thrilled we have the opportunity to present an exhibition that celebrates creativity from the Ice Age through to today.
“This exhibition will not only feature some of the rarest surviving examples of Ice Age art, but some of the oldest known works of art from the UK, demonstrating the social value of artistic expression throughout the ages.”
About the exhibition
Ice Age Art Now will feature over 75 objects from the British Museum collection and will connect with displays in Cliffe Castle Museum’s permanent galleries, engaging with local natural history, archaeology and the history of the museum.
Highlights in the exhibition include a flint point found at Volgu, Saône et Loire, France, which has been dated at 24,000 years old; an engraved drawing of a horse on bone, found at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire, England, about 13,500 years old; and two reindeer drawn on bone, found at La Madeleine, Dordogne, France, about 13,500 years old.
Artefacts will be arranged into themes including decorating the body, drawing animals and abstracting the female form. The exhibition also features an immersive installation reimagining cave art and other imagery from thousands of years ago.
Admission to Cliffe Castle Museum and the exhibition is free and groups are not required to book in advance.
For more information about the exhibition go to www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions-events.
To find out more about Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, visit bradford2025.co.uk.
