Bradford is City of Culture 2025, and among one of the many artistic highlights will be a display of some of the rarest examples of Ice Age art. BBC News reports that the items will be loaned by the British Museum, and will be on display at the Cliffe Castle Museum in Keighley (about ten miles from Bradford) from 21 June.
What is Ice Age art?
The last Ice Age occurred between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago, and as early modern humans recovered from its devastating effects, they made records of the world and daily life around them. Many of the most famous examples of Ice Age art can be found in Europe, such as the cave paintings of Lascaux in France, or those in southern Spain.
There are also many smaller portable items of art from this era, such as engravings on fragments of flint or bone, and small sculptures and pieces of jewellery. The engraving often depicted animals that were a part of their daily lives, either for transport, or for a source of food or by-products such as skin, fur and bone to make tools.
Species that are frequently depicted in the art works include horses, bison, ibex and reindeer. As well as carvings and engravings, artwork was created with natural pigments such as ochre and charcoal. Many of the Ice Age artefacts are very fragile, and therefore rarely loaned out to other museums and galleries.
“A proud moment for the Bradford district”
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.”
One of the prize exhibits will be an engraved drawing of a horse on a piece of bone, which was found roughly 13,500 years ago at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire. Another exhibit will be an engraved bone pendant in the form of a wolverine.
Why was Ice Age art created?
Of course it is not possible to know exactly why our early modern ancestors created these artworks. One theory is that they are evidence of humanity developing a higher state of consciousness and the ability to imagine and feel emotions more deeply, and this was expressed in art and the creation of non-functional objects.
The artworks may also have been a means of communication, storytelling and connection, or even education or a way of expressing spirituality. The high level of skill the drawings demonstrate show that a lot of time and care was dedicated to them, so they must have been valued and meaningful.
According to Art News, the British Museum said in a statement: “[Between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago], the slow recovery from near extinction caused by climate change stimulated an extraordinary artistic renaissance.”
“As the climate warmed, there was a vast increase in the production of drawings, sculptures, decorated tools and weapons, jewellery, and complex patterns.”
“These artworks were not crucial to the physical survival of human groups but then, as now, art contributed to people’s psychological and emotional wellbeing, helping to establish the strong social bonds essential to sustaining their ways of life.”
“[The end of the last Ice Age] 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.”
Other artworks that can be viewed in Bradford or the surrounding areas during 2025 include an exhibition of the digital collages and videos of David Hockney, who was born in Bradford in 1937.
If you have an artwork that was created at some point between the Ice Age and the digital age, drop into our framing shop in north London for some cool contemporary frame choices.