7 February – 26 May 201
An exhibition 40,000 years
in the making.
Discover masterpieces from
the last Ice Age drawn from across Europe in this groundbreaking show. Created
by artists with modern minds like our own, this is a unique opportunity to see
the world's oldest known sculptures, drawings and portraits. These exceptional pieces
will be presented alongside modern works by Henry Moore, Mondrian and Matisse,
illustrating the fundamental human desire to communicate and make art as a way
of understanding ourselves and our place in the world. Ice Age art was created
between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago and many of the pieces are made of mammoth
ivory and reindeer antler. They show skilful, practised artists experimenting
with perspectives, scale, volumes, light and movement, as well as seeking
knowledge through imagination, abstraction and illusion. One of the most beautiful
pieces in the exhibition is a 23,000-year-old sculpture of an abstract figure
from Lespugue, France. Picasso was fascinated with this figure and it
influenced his 1930s sculptural works. Although an astonishing
amount of time divides us from these Ice Age artists, such evocative pieces
show that creativity and expression have remained remarkably similar across
thousands of years.
