Wright of Derby: From the Shadows

Clever exhibition at the National Gallery looking at the candlelight paintings of Wright of Derby.

I'd been looking forward to this show as I love Wright of Derby's work. I'd hoped it would be bigger than this and look at his whole career including the portraits, but this was beautifully pitched to look at a specific period in his work from 1765 to 1773.

The show set the work in the context of the time but I liked the fact it put the paintings front and centre. Head to the right when you go in as this takes you through the pictures first rather than getting bogged down in the exploration of some aspects of them before you are ready for that detail.

I went on members' preview day and people were in awe of a of the work. The gallery's own painting of the bird in the air pump looked wonderful and it was great to see it with the Orrery painting. I loved the fact that paintings were shown with the objects they included such as an air pump and a copy of the Renaissance gladiator sculpture.

I had done a talk on the show the day before (see previous blog post) which had outlined the themes the curators had chosen to highlight to set the work in context. I'm not sure all of these came across in the show, partly because it was quite small.

Closes 10 May 2026


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