Steeped in artistic heritage, at the vanguard of the mid-20th century modernist movement, and with local stars such as Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, Yorkshire has a long association with the creative industries. But it was never the UK’s most radical art world destination – until now.

A new generation of alumni from Leeds University’s cutting-edge school of fine art are choosing to stay in the area when they graduate, to work as artists, open artist-led spaces, or join one of the region’s proliferation of galleries and museums. And together they are helping to put Yorkshire’s name on the radical art map.

The coming months are testimony to this flowering. In June the David Chipperfield-designed Hepworth Wakefield – 2017’s museum of the year – will exhibit sculptural textile artist Sheila Hicks. Later this month the Henry Moore Foundation opens a show of sculptures and watercolours by Düsseldorf-based contemporary artist Paloma Varga Weisz.

And Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which attracts half a million visitors a year and has recently expanded with its Riba Stirling prize-nominated Weston gallery, has announced its 2020 programme with a list dominated by women. Among them is the conceptual Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, whose major exhibition of 25 works just opened; a presentation of drawings and sculptures by Niki de Saint Phalle; the commission of a new monumental sculpture by Rachel Kneebone; and an Arts Council Collection survey exhibition of more than 45 sculptors, Breaking the Mould: Sculpture by Women Since 1945, billed as “a deliberately restorative act” that “seeks to redefine postwar British sculpture”.

At the heart of all this is Griselda Pollock, professor of social and critical histories of art at Leeds University. With a world reputation and 22 books to her name, she has just been awarded the 2020 Holberg prize for arts and humanities, worth £500,000. Described by the Holberg committee as “the foremost feminist art historian working today”, she has been key over the past four decades to the region’s emergence as the UK’s leading feminist art hub. She now hopes the prize – of 6 million kroner, funded by the Norwegian government – means she has an international platform from which to continue her work, and consolidate her legacy. “I was afraid that once I retired, the waters would close over,” she says.

Monkey with Green Apple (1995) by Niki de Saint Phalle. Photograph: K Middelkoop/Omer Tiroche Gallery

This is Pollock’s final year in her current role, though she will remain attached to the university as an emeritus professor. Addressing the disappearance of women in history has been central to Pollock’s academic life, so it is appropriate that the prize ensures her own longevity. “At the beginning of the 20th century, everyone knew about female Impressionists,” she says, “but by the end, they were gone. In the century known as the century of women! The question is, why?”

Many years of research and radical teaching at Leeds’ department of fine art, now the school of fine art, history of art and cultural studies (FAHACS), help ensure that this question echoes through institutions, galleries and artist-led spaces across the county. That, and the fact that around a third of their graduates stay to work in the local arts sector.

Reflecting Pollock’s assertion that “society is a battleground of representation”, Yorkshire Sculpture Park cites the maxim “If she can see it, she can be it”. Vasconcelos is wry about responses to her use of traditional Portuguese crochet and fabrics in works such as Valkyrie Marina Rinaldi (2014), a 12-metre, multicoloured, tentacled creature that is suspended from the ceiling in YSP’s Underground Gallery. The piece makes reference to female warriors from Norse mythology and Rinaldi herself, whose family was killed in the Holocaust; impoverished, she supported her children by sewing and built a fashion empire from scratch.

“My collectors say, ‘We love your work, but not the girly stuff,’” Vasconcelos says. “What is this hierarchy of materials?” Fabric is, of course, domestic, intimate, female. Her ripostes include Purple Rain, a crochet-covered, “feminist, gay version of Duchamp’s urinal”, and Big Booby, a vast, crocheted object that refers to kitchen potholders as well as the search for “the Madonna with the big boobies” in sitcom ’Allo ’Allo, while invoking the abstract paintings of Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella.

“I am a feminist artist,” says Vasconcelos. “I am not the result of just myself but of art history. Artists like Paula Rego, Annette Messager, Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Mona Hatoum and Niki de Saint Phalle form a chain to which I belong.”

Pollock has long championed female networks and Professor Abigail Harrison Moore, who nominated Pollock for the Holberg, confirms they are an integral part of life at FAHACS. Pollock is now curating an exhibition to celebrate 70 years of fine art at Leeds (1949-2019), which includes work by several of her former students; another protege launched the renowned Tetley art gallery in the city centre and is now back doing a PhD on artist-led spaces in the Leeds area. The department’s strong ties to local schools, regional galleries and museums mean that children attend workshops at the Hepworth Wakefield and the Henry Moore Institute.

“Access to art history in state schools is virtually non-existent,” says Harrison. “Only five offer it, and none north of Watford.” She and Pollock “leapt in” when the A-level was threatened, and thanks in part to their efforts children can study art history A-level online, with a lecture from Pollock.

“When you make people welcome, you empower them,” says Harrison. “Our creative industries are the UK’s most successful product, but that knowledge is kept secret.”

What is not secret, though, is Yorkshire’s new status as our hottest cultural destination. Artfarm, the hospitality company owned by collectors and gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth, will transform Bretton Hall, a former stately home within the grounds of the sculpture park, into a hotel. Will Wakefield become the next Bruton (home to Hauser and Wirth’s Somerset base)? Watch this space.

• This article was amended on 11 March 2020 to set out in full the name of Prof Abigail Harrison Moore and to correct a mistaken reference to the study of art history GCSE online, when A-level was meant.