Tag: British Museum

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York Museums Trust receives £192,096 from National Heritage Memorial Fund to save Melsonby Hoard for the nation

Dr Adam Parker, curator of Archaeology at York Museums Trust, handling an object in the Melsonby Hoard collection. Picture: Gareth Buddo for York Museums Trust

THE Yorkshire Museum, in York, has received £192,096 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund alongside public fundraising to acquire the Melsonby Hoard for future generations.

Discovered by a metal detectorist in 2021, near the village of Melsonby, North Yorkshire, the collection of more than 800 Iron Age artefacts dates back 2,000 years.

The hoard is a groundbreaking discovery for Iron Age research, featuring objects such as chariot wheels, cauldrons, horse bridles and ceremonial spears.

The quantity and variety of objects are unusual and have important implications for reassessing our understanding of Iron Age life in the north of England.

The hoard was excavated by a team of archaeologists from Durham University who stabilised and began researching this extraordinary find with financial support of more than £120,000 from Historic England and expert advice from the British Museum.

The find was reported under the Treasure Act 1996, administered by the Treasure Registry at the British Museum on behalf of the Department for Culture Media and Sport, and recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Dr Andrew Woods, left, and Dr Adam Parker

Thanks to the collective hard work of these organisations, alongside support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £54,000 in donations from the public, via the online crowdfunder, and a further £20,000 in other donations, the purchase of the hoard has been secured for the Yorkshire Museum.

Here, further research, conservation and analytical work will be carried out to learn more about its contents and ensure its long-term preservation. It will also become an important part of the Yorkshire Museum’s public programme, sharing the discovery with the museum’s visitors.

The Yorkshire Museum will be continuing its fundraising work to support the next steps for the hoard: conservation, display and research. Conservation will be undertaken to stabilise objects and prepare them for display.

The museum will work in partnership to undertake detailed research into the objects, their context and their significance for understanding life in the Iron Age.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund exists as a fund of last resort to support the acquisition, preservation and maintenance of the UK’s most outstanding heritage to create a publicly accessible and timeless collection as a memorial for those who have given their lives for the UK.

Kathryn Blacker, chief executive of York Museums Trust, said: “The Melsonby Hoard is a significant piece of Yorkshire’s history and York Museums Trust is delighted to have secured the funding to acquire the hoard for the nation.

Objects from the Melsonby Hoard, secured for the Yorkshire Museum. Picture: Gareth Buddo for York Museums Trust

“Thanks to the incredible support of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, as well as generous donations from members of the public, the hoard will remain here in Yorkshire, to be made available for everyone to see and to enjoy.

“We remain committed to researching and conserving these unprecedented finds to improve our understanding of our shared past and securing them for future generations.”

Simon Thurley, chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, said: “The Melsonby Hoard throws bright new light on Iron Age life in Yorkshire and beyond. We are pleased to support this acquisition, which will keep the hoard intact, in the county in which it was buried and enable research to take place to gain a deeper insight into its origin and history.

“We are delighted to count the Melsonby Hoard as part of the growing and timeless collection of UK heritage that belongs to all of us forever.”

Dr Andrew Woods, head of research and collections at York Museums Trust, said: “The support from the public, other heritage organisations and the National Heritage Memorial Fund means the Melsonby Hoard remains in Yorkshire for the public.

“This is only the beginning of the story. Next the Yorkshire Museum will work in partnership to undertake a careful programme of conservation to reveal more of the hoard’s beauty and to keep it protected for future generations.

Handle with care: A close-up of an object from the Melsonby Hoard. Picture: Gareth Buddo for York Museums Trust

“There will also be a research project to understand the stories of creation and deposition. Over the coming years the hoard will be put on display, and we cannot wait to share it with our visitors.”

Deputy leader of City of York Council and executive member for economy and culture, Councillor Pete Kilbane, said: “The huge level of public interest in the Melsonby Hoard, and support for keeping it in York, shows just how much people value our city’s role in showcasing the heritage of Yorkshire and these islands that we call home.  It’s a major addition to a fantastic collection in the heart of York. 

“Thanks to all the organisations and public who have supported the project so far.  It feels like we are writing the next chapter in understanding our shared history, and York is at the centre of that story.”

The Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, Museum Street, York, is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm.

The Melsonby Hoard: the back story

IN 2021, a metal detectorist unearthed a vast array of Iron Age metalwork in Melsonby, North Yorkshire. More than 800 items were uncovered, including parts of vehicles such as chariots, weapons and cauldrons, as well as hundreds of individual items, in the largest hoard of Iron Age metalwork found in the UK.

The site is located next to the hillfort at Stanwick, the royal capital of Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes tribe, and less than 50 miles from the Yorkshire Museum.

This hugely significant discovery is an archaeological time capsule from 2,000 years ago, buried in the first century around the time of the Roman conquest of southern Britain. The quantity and variety of objects found together are highly unusual for the Iron Age.

The hoard includes partial remains of more than seven wagons and chariots, elaborate harnesses for at least 14 horses, three ceremonial spears, two ornate cauldrons, and an iron mirror. Similarities to objects found in France and Denmark and coral imported from the Mediterranean reveal a community with international connections.

A large amount of the material within the hoard was either burnt or broken at the time of burial, suggesting a symbolic process of people showing their wealth and power by destroying the objects.

The fundraising campaign

THE Melsonby Hoard is a game-changing discovery, shedding new light on Iron Age Britain’s technological skill, artistry, trading links and society. Without urgent action, however, this treasure could have been lost to private collections or dispersed beyond the UK.

The value of the hoard was assessed at £254,000. Raising this amount was sufficient to save the hoard from private sale, keeping it in a public museum where it will be available for research and public display.

The objects are all 2,000 years old and require professional conservation to prevent deterioration of the fragile metalwork, enamel and coral. To protect the hoard into the future, additional funds for conservation are needed, so the fundraising continues.

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York Art Gallery draws attention to emerging artists in British Museum show for Season of Drawing programme launch

Drawing Attention commissioned artist Ugonna Hosten with her charcoal, ink and pastel work At The Dawn Of Each New Day at York Art Gallery . Picture: Charlotte Graham

THE British Museum touring exhibition Drawing Attention: Emerging Artists In Dialogue has opened at York Art Gallery as part of a new Season of Drawing. 

Compelling up-and-coming names in the field of contemporary drawing are displayed alongside works by celebrated artists within the British Museum collection of prints and drawings. 

These new acquisitions include works by some of the youngest living artists ever collected by the British Museum, presented in tandem with works by celebrated artists from Mary Delany and Édouard Manet to Barbara Hepworth, Andy Warhol and Yinka Shonibare.  

In this surprising and thought-provoking selection, emerging artists take the medium of drawing in new directions and use innovative approaches. A wide range of techniques and practices are represented, including drawings using make-up on face wipes by Sin Wai Kin and a drawing made with chalk collected from the White Cliffs of Dover by Josephine Baker.

Artists show how drawing, often considered a quiet or private medium, can be used to challenge social norms, explore identity and protest injustice. Catherine Anyango Grünewald has described the time and labour invested in her monumental drawings as a “direct homage” to their subjects, often the victims of institutional crimes.

The painstaking detail of Irish artist Miriam de Búrca’s drawings of clods of earth from cilliní – the unmarked graves of those deemed unfit for Christian burial – forces us to confront an uncomfortable history. 

Isabel Seligman, the British Museum’s curator of modern and contemporary drawing, says: “We are excited to share our dynamic and growing collection of contemporary drawings with York Art Gallery, alongside treasures of our historic collection.

Amy Cope admires St John the Baptiste, by Hendrick De Somer 1602 – 1656, in the British Museum’s touring exhibition Drawing Attention: Emerging Artists In Dialogue at York Art Gallery. Picture: Charlotte Graham

“This touring exhibition enables us to highlight over 20 new acquisitions by some of the freshest and most compelling new voices in the field, exploring questions of identity, memory and materiality, and using innovative materials and processes.”

Drawing Attention: Emerging Artists In Dialogue forms part of a broader Season of Drawing that will run until April 21 2024, taking in the annual Aesthetica Art Prize exhibition from February 15 to April 21.

This season of events and exhibitions includes a new commission by artist Ugonna Hosten, an exhibition of works created by participants in the York Art Gallery’s Teenage Art School and a drawing studio space for visitors to make their own drawings.

Ugonna Hosten’s commission, chi; Altarpieces, Liturgy & Devotion, chronicles a heroine’s enchanted journey to initiate a relationship with her chi, a personal guiding spirit central to the Igbo-speaking people of Southeast Nigeria.

Ugonna uses the process of drawing to investigate and reimagine alternate precolonial histories. Paintings from the York Art Gallery collection connect her research to her Christian upbringing, while ceramics expand on relationships between the use of water vessels in sacred rituals and ceremonies.

Multi-disciplinary artist Ugonna works across media encompassing collage, drawing and printmaking. Born in Nigeria, she migrated to Great Britain as a child, and in many ways her work seeks to explore the notion of duality – namely earthly and spiritual – as being central to the human experience. Themes of myth as a form of reality and the realm of the unconscious are prevalent in her art.

Ugonna’s route into fine art was via a BA Honours in Criminology that led to a career in the civil service. Those early explorations into the human mind on her degree programme filter into her work now, her artistic practice being an evolution of a sort in piecing fragments together and investigating experiences; historically, personally and imagined.

Seeking to convey the dimensions of the self and its connection to the collective unconscious, she considers her exploration as building on the rich legacy and tradition of storytelling and myth making.

York Art Gallery curator of fine art Becky Gee drawing in the specially created Drawing Studio. Picture: Charlotte Graham

As part of the Season of Drawing, Ugonna has developed and led York Art Gallery’s annual Teenage Art School programme. Participants created work guided by their own experiences and interests, using a broad interpretation of drawing that aligns with Ugonna’s own practice in an exploration of the relationship between printmaking and drawing.

The installation of their works alongside Ugonna’s commission offers visitors the chance to reflect on the vast creative and interpretive potential of drawing.

With that in mind, a range of drop-in sessions and bookable events will run in the specially created Drawing Studio, where visitors can have a go at different types of drawing. Becky Gee, York Art Gallery’s curator of fine art, says: “The Season of Drawing is a dynamic series of exhibitions and events that we hope will inspire visitors to think deeply about different aspects of drawing, and be inspired to try it for themselves.

“We are so grateful to have the opportunity to bring together so many different artists, from the famous and contemporary names of the British Museum to our own Teenage Art School participants.”

Among the Emerging Artists In Dialogue is Charmaine Watkiss, exhibiting her 2021 pencil, water-soluble graphite, watercolour and ink work Double Consciousness: Be Aware Of One’s Intentions, acquired by the British Museum with Art Fund and Rootstein Hopkins Foundation support.  

Charmaine, who lives and works in London, completed her MA in Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art, 2018. Her work is concerned with what she calls “memory “, wherein she creates narratives primarily through research into the African Caribbean diaspora, then mapped onto female figures.

Charmaine depicts herself as a conduit to relay stories that speak of a collective experience; starting with an idea, then allowing intuition and a dialogue with the work to take over. Her practice addresses themes of ritual, tradition, ancestry, mythology and cosmology.

Artist Charmaine Watkiss studies her pencil, water-soluble graphite, watercolour and ink work Double Consciousness: Be Aware Of One’s Intentions at York Art Gallery. Picture: Anthony Chapell-Ross

Since her first gallery solo show, The Seed Keepers, for Tiwani Contemporary Gallery, London, in 2021, she has been investigating the herbal healing traditions of Caribbean women; especially those of her mother’s generation, connecting those traditions through colonisation back to their roots in Africa. 

In 2022, Charmaine undertook a six-week residency in southwest France at Launchpad LAB that enabled her to explore nature and ecology in a more focussed way, and to combine drawing with making sculptural forms.

On her return, she was selected as a commissioned artist for the 12th edition of the Liverpool Biennial 2023. This allowed her to develop her practice further by creating an installation that consisted of life-sized drawings and sculpture, embodying a healing frequency in response to Liverpool’s troubled historical past.

Charmaine’s first institutional solo show, The Wisdom Tree, ran at Leeds Art Gallery from May to October last year, combining her signature large-scale drawings with more private artworks and notebooks in works that fused her interests in herbalism, alchemy and history and drew on her research into the medicinal and physical capabilities of plants.

Drawing Attention: Emerging Artists In Dialogue runs at York Art Gallery, launching the Season of Drawing, until January 28 2024. The season is backed by the Little Greene Paint Company.  

To find out more about the exhibition, the Season of Drawing events programme and how to book tickets (£7, concessions available) at www.yorkartgallery.org.uk. 

The full list of emerging artists in the Drawing Attention exhibition

EMII Alrai (born 1993); Catherine Anyango Grünewald (b.1982); Josephine Baker (b.1990); Miriam de Búrca (b.1972); Somaya Critchlow (b.1993); Jake Grewal (b.1994); David Haines (b.1969); Rosie Hastings & Hannah Quinlan (b.1991); Mary Herbert (b.1988); Jessie Makinson (b.1985); Sam Metz, Jade Montserrat (b.1981); Ro Robertson (b. 1984); Sin Wai Kin (b.1991), and Charmaine Watkiss (b.1964).