
Joseph Wright of Derby Painting Reproductions Gallery 5 of 6
1734-1797English Romantic Painter
Joseph Wright (September 3, 1734 - August 29, 1797), styled Wright of Derby, was an English landscape and portrait painter.
He was born in Derby, the son of an attorney, who was afterwards town-clerk. Deciding to become a painter, he went to London in 1751 and for two years studied under Thomas Hudson, the master of Joshua Reynolds. After painting portraits for a while at Derby, he again placed himself for fifteen months under his former master. He then settled in Derby, and varied his work in portraiture by the production of the subjects seen under artificial light with which his name is chiefly associated, and by landscape painting.
He married in 1773, and in the end of that year he visited Italy, where he remained till 1775. While at Naples he witnessed an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which formed the subject of many of his subsequent pictures. On his return from Italy he established himself at Bath as a portrait-painter; but meeting with little encouragement he returned to Derby, where he spent the rest of his life.
He was a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, and to those of the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1781 and a full member in 1784. He, however, declined the latter honour on account of a slight which he believed that he had received, and severed his official connection with the Academy, though he continued to contribute to the exhibitions from 1783 till 1794.
Wright's portraits are frequently defective in drawing, and without quality or variety of handling, while their flesh tints are often hard. He is seen at his best in his subjects of artificial light, of which the Orrery (1766), the property of the Corporation of Derby (now Derby City Council), and An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), in the National Gallery, are excellent examples. His Old Man and Death (1774) is also a striking and individual production. An exhibition of Wright's works was brought together at Derby in 1883, and twelve of his pictures were shown in the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1886.
125 Paintings of Wright of Derby
Private Collection
Portrait of Old John, Head Waiter at the King's ...
$650
$59.66
Private Collection
Portrait of Thomas and Joseph Pickford as Children
$1119
Museum and Art Gallery Derby United Kingdom
The Rev. D'Ewes Coke his Wife Hannah and Daniel ...
$1368
$60.72
Private Collection
Portrait of a Girl in a Tawny Coloured Dress
$845
Darwin College Cambridge United Kingdom
Portrait of Erasmus Darwin
$677
$49.32
Private Collection
Portrait of Erasmus Darwin
$659
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Portrait of Rev. Thomas Gisborne and his Wife Mary
$1263
$58.87
Private Collection
Portrait of Rev. John Pickering
$659
National Portrait Gallery London United Kingdom
Self Portrait at the Age of about Fifty
$535
Private Collection
Portrait of a Lady
$552
Private Collection
Portrait of Miss Theodora Fortune
$546
Private Collection
Portrait of Anne Bateman later Mrs John Gisborne
$693
Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia Philadelphia USA
George Washington
$791
$49.80
Art Institute of Chicago Illinois USA
The Gulf of Salerno
$538
$50.95
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
A Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno, Sunset
$507
$56.10
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Portrait of a Man, Known as the Indian Captain
$931
$47.90
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Cottage on Fire at Night
$640
$51.35
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
The Prisoner
$372
$47.90
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Derwent Water with Skiddaw in the Distance
$446
$50.56
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Dovedale
$659
$54.91
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
A Lake by Moonlight
$498
$60.06
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
Virgil's Tomb by Moonlight, with Silius Italicus
$718
$58.21
Yale Center for British Art Connecticut USA
William and Margaret from Percy's Reliques of ...
$726
$62.30