Joseph Wright
byname WRIGHT OF DERBY (b. Sept. 3, 1734, Derby, Derbyshire,
England — d. Aug. 29, 1797, Derby, Derbyshire, England),
was anEnglish 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 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.
The name
“Wright of Derby” was applied to him by reviewers of
the Society of Artists' exhibitions in the 1760s, to distinguish
him from the Liverpool artist, Richard Wright, who was already
exhibiting. The American artist Joseph Wright also arrived in
England in 1772, making the style “Wright of Derby”
even more helpful. He is not known to have complained about the
title and having it by this name that his reputation has endured as
one of the most original, wide-ranging and talented English artists
of the 18th century.