Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool

In 1768 Joseph Wright left his native city of Derby and moved to Liverpool in search of recognition and success. Earlier the same year he had exhibited the masterly Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump to great acclaim in London, but he had failed to sell the picture. He would also, at the end of the year, find himself excluded from the Royal Academy. Liverpool offered Wright the opportunity to engage with wealthy clients who had little experience of art patronage. He painted portraits of the prosperous merchants and their families, and he continued to develop the brilliantly illuminated subject paintings on which his reputation chiefly rests today.
This illustrated book examines Wright's decisive impact on the artistic climate of the expanding port town of Liverpool and on the other artists working there. The Merseyside network of merchants, bankers, and amateur and professional artists that Wright encountered in the years around 1770 is identified as his true historical milieu. The book serves as the catalogue of the exhibition of the same name shown at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven in 2007-8.