Explore the contemporary, the classical and the controversial

Last year the museum finally bought a work by Alan Davie, who was a fellow from 1957 to 1959. It celebrates the purchase and the artist's 90th birthday (making him the oldest living Gregory Fellow) with an exhibition of his work from March to June.

The Davie exhibition will be followed with a display of work by 20 women artists from 10 European countries, who have come together to explore European identity. The exhibition runs from June 22 to August 14.

Women and the European Union are also at the centre of what looks set to be a challenging exhibition at Bradford's Impressions Gallery. Dana Popa has spent four years documenting the experiences of sex-trafficked women through Moldova for not Natasha.

She says: "Natasha is the nickname given to prostitutes with eastern European looks. Sex trafficked girls hate it." The unflinching exhibition will run from February 5 to April, and Popa will be giving a talk on her work at the end of February.

Meanwhile, Sabine J Bieli's Fr-Agile comes to the South Square Gallery in Thornton, Bradford at the beginning of February for a month.Produced during an artist's residency at Spurn Point at the Humber Estuary, Bieli exhibits three-dimensional video sculptures that subtly recall centuries of slowly shifting sands and reflect the fragility of an historic coastline.

Another small gallery doing big things is Artco, in Meanwood Road on the outskirts of Leeds. In February, the little venue will be displaying original etchings and lithographs by surrealist master Salvador Dali.

Up in North Yorkshire, Zillah Bell opens the new year with the Sleningford Tutors Show, which will feature paintings, etchings and sculptures. It will be followed in March by an exhibition of work by Carry Akroyd and Friends.

Over in Halifax, Dean Clough is still putting the finishing touches to its programme, but it will include a retrospective on Auerbach-style painter Mike Knowles and a sound art installation which has been a year and a half in the making.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park will host an extensive exhibition of work by David Nash from the end of May, tracing the evolution of the artist's 40 year career. Sculpture, installation and drawings will be displayed across the park and include new monumental works for the Underground Gallery, a retrospective survey in Longside Gallery and a permanent outdoor commission.

Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire opens The Enchanting World of Beatrix Potter on February 27, a rare chance to see some original watercolours and drawings by one of history's most popular authors and illustrators. It follows up with Lee Miller's War, featuring photographs taken by Miller in Europe shortly after D Day.

Harewood is concentrating on art which combines the classic with cutting edge contemporary. Exhibitions will include a celebration of the venue's modern art space. On its 21st anniversary, 21 artists have been asked to select a piece from the Harewood collection and display and interpret it in a new way.

From February to September, York's National Railway Museum will evoke the romance and excitement of international travel with its exhibition Once Upon a Tide, which explores the tales of over 100 years of North Sea ferry crossings between Harwich and the Hook, when ferries were part of the British Railways fleet, through the memories of the people who used it and the poster artwork that sold it.

Elsewhere in York, the York Art Gallery, will celebrate the centenary of the Contemporary Art Society from February to May, by bringing together highlights from Yorkshire galleries, acquired via the Society, giving a fascinating snapshot of British Art over the last 100 years.

The first months of the year at Leeds City Art Gallery are taken up by the Northern Art Prize, but when that moves out, Women and Conflict moves in. The pioneering exhibition provides a British context for creative engagement with arenas of conflict experienced by South Asian women artists from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It opens in March and is at the gallery until May, when one of the world's leading painters, Sean Scully, comes to the gallery. Represented by most major international museums, Scully will be well celebrated when his work comes to Leeds.

Sheffield Millennium Galleries has its usual eclectic range of works and impressive exhibitions, but perhaps the most impressive of the coming year is set to be Writers of Influence.

Arriving at the Graves Gallery in April, the exhibition is made up of work from the National Portrait Gallery and will take visitors on a journey from Jane Austen to Jarvis Cocker. The new exhibition features over 60 works from the National Portrait Gallery, celebrating Britain's finest literary talents.

TOP FIVE IN 2010

Alan Davie: Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery at Leeds University.

Writers of Influence: Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Graves Gallery, Sheffield.

The Enchanting World of Beatrix Potter: Nunnington Hall, Helmsley.

Not Natasha: Impressions Gallery, Bradford.

David Nash Retrospective: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.