It is an independent charitable trust (number 1067908) and registered museum situated in the 500-acre, 18th-century Bretton Hall estate in West Yorkshire. Founded in 1977 by Sir Peter Murray CBE, YSP was the first sculpture park in the UK, and is the largest of its kind in Europe, providing the only place in Europe to see Barbara Hepworth’s The Family of Man in its entirety alongside a significant collection of sculpture, including bronzes by Henry 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 MBE, 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.

500 acres of fields, hills, woodland, lakes and formal gardens combine to create the stunning setting for Yorkshire Sculpture Park. These historic grounds were once part of the Bretton Estate, with a country manor at the centre. As well as housing hundreds of artworks, today the landscape is rich with the stories of Bretton’s former lives.

The Domesday Book listed this land as ‘waste’ in 1086. In the centuries since, it became an aristocratic home. And each of those who inherited and worked on the estate left their mark.

As beautiful as it may be, this landscape is not entirely natural. In fact, its previous owners had it carefully designed and managed to look ‘natural’. Their architects, landscape designers and gardeners dug lakes, planted trees, built lodges. They also introduced extravagant, purely ornamental buildings – or follies. Among the wealthy landowners of 18th-century Britain, a folly was a fashionable status symbol, a display of excess.

Many of these fascinating features and romantic relics remain today. Seek them out in the grounds, dotted among the artworks, wildlife and trees.

YSP’s driving purpose for 45 years has been to ignite, nurture and sustain interest in and debate around contemporary art and sculpture, especially with those for whom art participation is not habitual or familiar. It enables open access to art, situations and ideas, and continues to re-evaluate and expand the approach to considering art’s role and relevance in society. Supporting 45,000 people each year through YSP’s learning programme, this innovative work develops ability, confidence and life aspiration in participants.

YSP’s core work is made possible by investment from Arts Council England, Wakefield Council, Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation and Sakurako and William Fisher through the Sakana Foundation.