Hockney has been painting the copse close to Warter, in the East Riding, for the last couple of years and had completed two studies in the summer and winter.

But returning last week to start work on a new painting for spring, he discovered the woodland which had stood there for over a century had been chopped down, leaving nothing but piles of sawn logs.

"To me there was something shocking about the scene," said the artist, who has a home in Bridlington.

"The landscape I remembered was gone completely and what remained looked like a scene from World War One.

"I admit they had a perfect right to do it, but it seems sad.

"If they had pulled down a great church people would have seen and asked questions, but nobody asked about these trees. Nobody asks enough questions any more."

But all is not lost – Hockney has decided that the desolate scene will be the subject of a painting as the cut limbs "are quite beautiful in their own right."

The trees belonged to the Warter estate, which is owned by Malcolm Healey, one of the country's richest men.

The estate gained permission from the Forestry Commission last year to fell the sycamores and beeches because of their poor condition. The woodland will be replanted.

Richard and Sally Marriott, whose trees on Woldgate, an ancient road leading from Kilham to Bridlington featured in paintings by Hockney later exhibited at the Tate, said they would do what they could to preserve the landscape.

Mr Marriott said: "As David Hockney has said they had a perfect right to do this. We are very pleased and proud and happy he has painted our trees.

"It's a very, very ancient road – some people reckon it's a Bronze Age road, and while it is managed, we wouldn't want to alter the aspect of the wood.

"The idea of clear felling is, as far as we are concerned, an anathema."

Hockney's two paintings of the copse are being shown at an exhibition next month at the Wurtz museum in Kunzelsau, Germany.