Many Hands

• 10.00 – 17.00 on 09 November 2011 – 20 January 2012
• at The Royal Society, London

Hands are the artist’s tools and it is hardly surprising that they feature in some of the most recognisable works of European art. One only has to think of such icons of the Renaissance as the focal point of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam at the Sistine Chapel. This preoccupation with what is the most obvious part of our anatomies, the ones busily working in front of our eyes, is very old indeed: as old as the beginning of art as an expression of modern humanity.

From Palaeolithic cave painters to contemporary practitioners, hands are both tools and subject for the artist. This exhibition shows works by Henry Moore, Freya Payne, Bryan Organ and Eleanor Bowen with reconstructed cave art technique by palaeontologist Dr Paul Pettitt to explore the deep history of hands in art.

The exhibition has now closed.