The largest painting created by Yorkshire artist David Hockney will go on show outside London for the first time next year at York Art Gallery.

Measuring 12 metres by 4.5 metres, Bigger Trees Near Warter – or/ou Peinture Sur Le Motif Pour Le Nouvel Age Post-Photograpique 2007 – is made up of 50 individual canvases of a landscape near the Yorkshire Wolds village of Warter.

For the past seven years, since his return home from California, Hockney has been painting the Wolds’ landscapes. In his largest work yet, he depicts a woodland scene just before spring when the trees are coming into leaf.

In the shallow foreground space, a copse of tall trees and some early-flowering daffodils stand on slightly raised ground. An imposing sycamore is the composition’s central focus, and another, denser copse, painted in pinkish tones, is visible in the background.

A road to the extreme left and two buildings to the right offer signs of human habitation. The painting’s extensive upper zone is dominated by the intricate but stark pattern created by the trees’ overlapping branches, which are clearly delineated against the winter sky.

Hockney took six weeks to complete the painting, using a combination of traditional techniques and new technology to create a work that involved each individual canvas being painted en plein air.

Its arrival in York will mark the start of Art In Yorkshire – Supported By Tate, a year-long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries throughout Yorkshire, where works from Tate’s Collection of historic, modern and contemporary art will be showcased through exhibitions and events.

Tate director Nick Serota says: “It’s wholly appropriate that Hockney’s remarkable work should be shown at York Art Gallery. Standing before Bigger Trees Near Warter, the viewer is overwhelmed by the beauty of the winter trees and the energy of the Yorkshire landscape. In this work he has deftly joined together the tradition of painting en plein air with digital technology on a monumental scale.”

Laura Turner, curator of art at York Art Gallery, describes Hockney’s painting as a truly incredible piece of art.

“Its scale completely captivates the viewer,” she says. “With Hockney being one of Yorkshire’s most famous artists and the subject being of a scene in Yorkshire, its arrival is the perfect way to launch Art In Yorkshire.”

Hockney’s painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition before the Bradford-born artist presented it to Tate.

The painting will go on display in York before being shown at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull from June and at Cartwright Hall in Bradford from October 1.

York Art Gallery’s exhibition of East Yorkshire Landscapes by David Hockney will run from February 10 to June 22, 10am to 5pm. Admission is free.