Art and Sculpture Events in Wakefield

CRAFTED – independent makers market – will be taking over The Art House‘s gallery spaces, showcasing hand-crafted products from local Designer-Makers, including textiles, ceramics, jewellery, printmaking and more.

CRAFTED also coincides with The Art House’s Open Studios event! Visitors can explore the Artist studios, wander through the Grade II Listed Building – formerly the Carnegie Library – and join free creative activities in the Maker Spaces throughout the day. The event is ideal for families, and dogs are welcome too!

Wakefield, WF1 2TE
Saturday 9 May
Free
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Artwalk is Wakefield’s free bi-monthly multi-venue trail of art, music, spoken word, sculpture, performance, history and photography. On the last Wednesday of alternate months, quirky venues (from places of worship to pubs and bars) open between 5pm-9pm to become a rich collection of art galleries, installations and performance spaces. Keep checking the Artwalk website for details of the latest trail as they become available.

Wakefield, WF1 1HG
Wednesday 27 May, 5pm-9pm
Free
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Helen Riddle’s A Stitch in Time at WX – Wakefield Exchange explores decay and repair in the wall that environmentalist Charles Waterton built around his estate in Walton in the 1820s. Waterton was ahead of his time in his efforts to protect wildlife and, in building the wall, he is credited with creating the world’s first nature reserve at Anglers Country Park. These beautiful artworks combine felt, textiles and stitch with lime mortar and other construction materials.

This exhibition is part of WallFest, a celebration of the bicentenary the world’s first nature reserve.

Wakefield, WF1 3AD
Tuesday 12 May – Monday 1 June
Free
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Opening the 2026 summer season, The Art House presents Winner of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 2024-25, Harriet Bowman with the exhibition Slow Puncture, an ambitious installation exploring the entanglement of body, vehicle and material through a range of media, including glass, metal, rubber and ceramics.

Wakefield, WF1 2TE
Saturday 16 May – Thursday 9 July
Free
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The Hepworth Wakefield hosts Lewis Hammond’s first museum presentation in the UK, featuring a new body of paintings developed specifically for The Hepworth Wakefield.  Hammond will explore the theme of home and what defines a place of belonging. He examines how various states of existence can strip us of this sense, leaving us to confront the dislocation and alienation that arise from being without a place to call home.

Wakefield, WF1 5AW
Saturday 23 May – Sunday 1 November
£13/ FREE for Wakefield district residents
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Wakefield, WF1 3AD
Thursday 4 June – Sunday 7 June
Free
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This Summer, WX – Wakefield Exchange will host Helios, a spectacular large‑scale artwork that brings the awe and energy of the Sun into the heart of the city. The artwork will be surrounded by free, family‑friendly space activities for all ages. Created by renowned UK artist Luke Jerram, this six‑metre‑wide illuminated sphere reveals the Sun’s surface in extraordinary detail, offering visitors the chance to explore sunspots, filaments and swirling patterns usually hidden from the naked eye.

Wakefield, WF1 3AD
Friday 12 June – Sunday 6 September
Free
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Headlining Yorkshire Sculpture Park‘s 2026 programme, Hold to this Earth is a major presentation of work by contemporary Indigenous American artists from Tia Collection. The exhibition brings together over 60 works by more than 30 artists, whose practices are rooted in deep relationships to land, cultural memory and community, offering a rare encounter with contemporary Indigenous North American art that is unprecedented in Europe.

Wakefield, WF4 4LG
Saturday 13 June – Sunday 6 September
£9.50 adults/Free for under 18s
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