The Ruskin Collection: Storm-Cloud – The Look of the Sky

The Ruskin Collection: Storm-Cloud – The Look of the Sky is on at the Millennium Gallery from Saturday 20 December 2025 to Thursday 24 December 2026. It's a long run, so there's plenty of time to fit it in over the next year.

The exhibition takes its title from John Ruskin's 1884 lecture The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, in which he argued that industrial pollution and a 'plague wind' were making the weather weak and unpredictable. It's a Victorian take on climate change that still feels relevant, and the show builds around it by bringing together works from the Guild of St George's Ruskin Collection, a new video work by Jake Goodall, and research from the University of Sheffield.

One of the more interesting things about the show is who put it together. The Ruskin Collection part is curated by The National Saturday Club, a group of 13-16-year-olds who meet weekly at the Millennium Gallery. Seeing a collection of Victorian art and minerals through the eyes of Sheffield teenagers gives the whole thing a different energy than your usual gallery hang.

That collection itself comes from the Guild of St George, which Ruskin founded in 1871 as a philanthropic society and a museum for Sheffield's workers, filled with artworks, illustrated books and minerals. It's still a charity today, with more than 325 Companions worldwide, and it still promotes his values.

The exhibition also sits within Storm-Cloud, an ongoing project by Sheffield Hallam University's Dr Tom Payne, who performs Ruskin's lecture and invites artists to respond with their own 'notes and additions'. The video work by Jake Goodall is one of those responses. Entry is free, though they ask for a £5 donation.