Yorkshire Sculpture Park: Art and walking combines in one of Yorkshire's best tourist attractions

There are some fine places to walk in Yorkshire and some great exhibitions to view art, but few combine the two quite as well as the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

It’s hilly tracks attracts as many outdoor types as the statues by Damien Hirst, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth draw art aficionados .

It makes this wonderful place, within view of the M1 and nestled between Wakefield, Huddersfield and Barnsley, one of the surprising treasures of Yorkshire.

And what started as a novel idea back in 1977 has now become established as the leading international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture.

It is an independent charitable trust and a registered museum in the 500-acre, 18th-century Bretton Hall estate. Founded by Sir Peter Murray, YSP was the first sculpture park in the UK, and is the largest of its kind in Europe, providing the only place in the continent to see Hepworth’s The Family of Man in its entirety alongside a significant collection of sculpture, including bronzes by Moore, and site-specific works by Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and James Turrell.

YSP mounts a world-class, year-round temporary exhibitions programme including some of the world’s leading artists across six indoor galleries, and outdoors.

Recent highlights include exhibitions by Robert Indiana, Joana Vasconcelos, Akeela Bertram, Not Vital, KAWS, Bill Viola, Anthony Caro, Fiona Banner, Ai Weiwei, Kimsooja, Amar Kanwar, Yinka Shonibare, Joan Miró and Jaume Plensa.

More than 80 works on display across the estate include major sculptures by Phyllida Barlow, Ai Weiwei, Roger Hiorns, Sol LeWitt, Joan Miró, Dennis Oppenheim and Thomas J Price.

In fact, Sir Nicholas Serota, chairman of the Arts Council, said: “YSP is one of the great institutions committed to sculpture in the world.”

You can currently see four major sculptures by Damien Hirst.

Charity (2002-2003), Myth (2010), The Hat Makes the Man (2004-2007) and The Virgin Mother (2005-2006) joined YSP as part of Yorkshire Sculpture International (YSI).

The park is also presenting the first major European exhibition of sculpture, painting and prints by American artist Robert Indiana. Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018 traces the development of sculpture across six decades.

YSP also presents the first UK museum display of work by the highly acclaimed North American artist Daniel Arsham.

A YSP spokesman said: “Six of Daniel Arsham’s bronze sculptures can be found outdoors in the 18th-century Formal Garden including Bronze Extraterrestrial Bicycle (2022), Bronze Eroded Bunny (Large) (2022), and the three-metre tall Bronze Eroded Venus of Arles (Large) (2022) – Arsham’s retelling of the ancient marble statue of Aphrodite from the 1st century BCE.”