Wright, Joseph

▪ English painter

byname  Wright of Derby  

born Sept. 3, 1734, Derby, Derbyshire, Eng.

died Aug. 29, 1797, Derby

 English painter who was a pioneer in the artistic treatment of industrial subjects. He was also the best European painter of artificial light of his day.

      Wright was trained as a portrait painter by Thomas Hudson (Hudson, Thomas) in the 1750s. Wright's home was Derby, one of the great centres of the birth of the Industrial Revolution, and his depictions of scenes lit by moonlight or candlelight combine the realism of the new machinery with the romanticism involved in its application to industry and science. His pictures of technological subjects, partly inspired by the Dutch followers of Caravaggio, date from 1763 to 1773; the most famous are The Air Pump (1768) and The Orrery (c. 1763–65). Wright was also noted for his portraits of English Midlands industrialists and intellectuals.

Additional Reading

Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, 2 vol. (1968); Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby (1990), an exhibition catalogue; Stephen Daniels, Joseph Wright (1999); and Elizabeth E. Barker and Alex Kidson, Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool (2007), an exhibition catalogue.

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