Show reveals 'extraordinary' Ice Age art - council

Some of the rarest surviving examples of Ice Age art will go on display in Bradford as part of the 2025 City of Culture celebrations.

The Ice Age Art Now exhibition is expected to contain more than 75 objects borrowed from the British Museum as part of a partnership project with Bradford 2025 and Bradford District Museums & Galleries, the council said.

Sarah Ferriby, the authority's executive member for healthy people and places, said the collaboration "emphasises our commitment to bringing world-class cultural experiences to people from across the Bradford district and beyond".

The exhibition is due to open at the Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley on 21 June, according to the council.

A spokesperson said the exhibition would present work by people living in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, which was between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago.

The slow recovery from near extinction caused by climate change "stimulated an extraordinary artistic renaissance", they said.

"Then, as now, art contributed to people's psychological and emotional wellbeing."

Shanaz Gulzar, Bradford 2025's creative director, said: "Drawing is our first means of creative expression, and this exhibition proves people have been doing this for millennia.

"For these incredible objects to be on display here in the North, in the stunning Cliffe Castle, is a proud moment for the Bradford district."

As part of the exhibition, visitors would be able to experience an immersive installation recreating the inside of a decorated cavem, the council said.

Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, said the exhibition would feature "some of the rarest surviving examples of Ice Age art" as well as "some of the oldest known works of art from the UK".

Among the exhibits would be an engraved drawing of a horse on bone, found at Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, thought to be about 13,500 years old.

Other items in the collection would include a depiction of two reindeer which were believed to have been drawn on bone about 13,500 years ago, and an engraved bone pendant depicting a wolverine, thought to be between 12,000-13,000 years old.

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