David Hockney Art Trail in the Yorkshire Wolds

The quiet lanes and rolling chalk hills of East Yorkshire became the subject of some of the most celebrated landscape paintings of the 21st century.

David Hockney, born in Bradford in 1937, spent much of the period between 2004 and 2013 painting the landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds. After decades in Los Angeles and London, he returned to East Yorkshire and found in these hills a subject that would produce hundreds of works: oil paintings, watercolours, iPad drawings, and multi-canvas pieces of extraordinary scale. The roads, hedgerows, and fields he painted can still be visited today, largely unchanged.

Hockney's Return to East Yorkshire

Hockney had known the area since childhood. His friend Jonathan Silver, the owner of Salts Mill in Saltaire, encouraged him to revisit the Yorkshire landscape. After Silver's death in 1997, Hockney began spending more time in Bridlington, staying in a house on the seafront where he had a large studio built. By 2004 he was painting outdoors in the Wolds almost daily, driving the lanes in the early morning to find the right light.

What drew him was the openness of the landscape, the way the chalk hills fold and roll, and the changing seasons visible in hedgerows, trees, and ploughed fields. He described the Wolds as a landscape that people drove through without noticing, and set about making them notice. The paintings that followed are vivid, colour-saturated, and enormous, some spanning multiple canvases to capture the width of a panoramic view.

Woldgate: The Most Painted Lane in England

Woldgate is a narrow lane running between Kilham and Sledmere, lined with mature trees that form a tunnel of branches overhead. Hockney painted and drew this road obsessively across every season: bare branches in winter, the first green of spring, full summer canopy, and golden autumn. His series "The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire" captured the lane in 2011 using both oil on canvas and iPad drawings, tracking the almost daily changes as winter gave way to spring.

Visiting Woldgate today, you can stand in the spots where Hockney set up his easel. The trees are still there, the road is still quiet, and the quality of light that attracted him is unchanged. There is no signage or formal trail marker; it's simply a country lane. But anyone familiar with his paintings will recognise it immediately.

Bridlington and the Coast

Bridlington served as Hockney's base throughout his Wolds period. His studio on the seafront was where the large multi-canvas works were assembled. The town itself appears less often in the paintings than the surrounding countryside, but the coast and harbour feature in some works. The Hockney Gallery at Bridlington Art Gallery has displayed selections of his East Yorkshire work, though the main collections are now held at major galleries in London and abroad.

The East Yorkshire attractions around Bridlington make it a natural starting point for anyone following the Hockney trail. From here, the lanes of the northern Wolds are within a short drive.

Key Locations on the Trail

Beyond Woldgate, several other locations appear repeatedly in Hockney's work. The road from Kilham towards Rudston, with its wide views across the northern Wolds, features in several large paintings. The area around Warter, south of Driffield, provided material for panoramic works showing the patchwork of farmland across the chalk hills. Sledmere and its surrounding estate land, with avenues of trees and open parkland, also appear.

The villages of the Wolds that Hockney drove through daily remain much as they were. Kilham, Rudston, Burton Agnes, and Langtoft are quiet places with stone and brick houses, medieval churches, and the unhurried pace that defines rural East Yorkshire. Visiting them gives you a sense of the daily routine Hockney followed: driving out from Bridlington in the early morning, finding a spot, and painting until the light changed.

The iPad Drawings

In 2010, Hockney began using the iPad as a drawing tool, creating landscapes on the screen with his finger and later a stylus. These digital works, made on the spot in the Wolds, have a freshness and immediacy that his oil paintings, for all their power, cannot quite match. They were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 2012 as part of "A Bigger Picture," a show that brought the Yorkshire Wolds to international attention. The iPad drawings proved that the medium was irrelevant; what mattered was the eye and the hand of the artist, and the landscape in front of him.

Planning Your Visit

A circular drive from Bridlington through Kilham, along Woldgate towards Sledmere, south to Warter, and back via Driffield covers the main Hockney locations in about 40 miles. Allow a full morning or afternoon, longer if you stop to walk the lanes on foot, which is the best way to see the landscape as Hockney saw it. The route passes through the heart of the Wolds, so you can easily combine it with visits to Beverley or Burton Agnes Hall.

Spring is the most rewarding season for the trail. Watching the hedgerows come to life along Woldgate in April and May, you understand exactly why Hockney returned to this lane day after day. But the Wolds are beautiful in every season, and the winter paintings show that Hockney found as much to celebrate in bare branches against a grey sky as in the full green of summer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I see David Hockney's Yorkshire Wolds paintings?

The Hockney Gallery at Bridlington Art Gallery (now Bridlington Spa) occasionally displays local works. Major collections of his Wolds paintings are held at the Royal Academy in London, Tate Britain, and the Salts Mill gallery in Saltaire near Bradford. Woldgate itself and the surrounding lanes can be visited freely.

Can you drive the David Hockney art trail in the Yorkshire Wolds?

Yes. The main locations, including Woldgate, the road from Kilham to Rudston, and views around Sledmere and Warter, are all accessible by car. A circular drive of about 40 miles starting from Bridlington covers the key spots. Many visitors combine driving with short walks along the lanes Hockney painted.