12-04-2025
Ice age art to be showcased alongside Matisse at Cliffe Castle Museum
A new exhibition at Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley will showcase some of the oldest art found in the UK, alongside more recent works by celebrated artists such as Rembrandt, Matisse, and Maggi Hambling.
The exhibition, called Ice Age Art Now, is a British Museum partnership project with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and Bradford District Museums & Galleries.
It will open at Cliffe Castle Museum on June 21.
The exhibition will present work by people living in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago.
Among the pieces to be exhibited is this engraved bone pendant depicting a wolverine (Image: Trustees of the British Museum)
At this time, the slow recovery from near extinction caused by climate change stimulated an "extraordinary artistic renaissance," in the words of a spokesperson.
As the climate warmed, there was a vast increase in the production of drawings, sculptures, decorated tools and weapons, jewellery, and complex patterns.
The period saw the rise of small-scale engravings, of "incredible delicacy," on bone, antler, ivory, and stone, which were created alongside the more familiar images found on cave walls.
These drawings depict the animals that would have been relied upon for food and raw materials, such as bison, horse, ibex, and reindeer.
Works by Rembrandt, Matisse, and Maggi Hambling are also included to highlight "such essential elements as line, form, shading, composition, and abstraction present in the long history of art, despite being separated by thousands of years."
Works from more recent history will also be exhibited, to demonstrate essential elements of line, form, shading, composition, and abstraction. Pictured: 'True portrait of an anteater,' a print after Francisco de Goya (Image: Trustees of the British Museum)
The exhibition will connect with displays in Cliffe Castle Museum's permanent galleries via a family-friendly trail, extending the interest of the show across the ground floor and engaging with local natural history, archaeology, and the history of the museum.
Visitors will also be able to experience an immersive installation that evokes the inside of a decorated cave.
The exhibition will feature more than 75 objects from the British Museum collection, many of which are rarely lent due to their age and fragility.
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."
Ice Age Art Now will run from June 21 to September 14, 2025.
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To coincide with the exhibition, am illustrated catalogue, Ice Age Art Now, written by Jill Cook, will be published by the British Museum Press in June.
