Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool 22 MAY — 30 AUGUST, 2008 Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) is one of the most significant and admired British artists of the eighteenth century. Prized by his contemporaries for the originality of his "candlelight" paintings, Wright was also a distinguished portraitist. From 1768 to 1771, he lived and worked in Liverpool, then Britain's fastest-growing port and a burgeoning cultural and economic center. Wright's success in Liverpool made him the first great British artist to establish a career outside of London. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool is the first major exhibition to examine Wright's creative development in Liverpool at the start of the city's cultural renaissance and growing status as a major world port. The Yale Center for British Art is the only U.S. venue for the exhibition. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool features approximately eighty works, including more than forty paintings and drawings by Wright, as well as works by his circle of friends and pupils in Liverpool. It also provides a look at the city during a period of economic expansion and political change. Wright's arrival marked a turning point in the development of the city's artistic culture, what one contemporary called a "Dawn of Taste." At the time, Liverpool was characterized by its extraordinarily mobile population, its commercial expansion, and its uneasy involvement with the slave trade, which made many of its merchants' fortunes. Wright's highly realistic style was well suited to this environment. His ac book, on display in the exhibition, lists many of the paintings he produced. In 1769, for example, he completed a portrait on average every nine or ten days. While in Liverpool, Wright tapped into the city's growing interest in the visual arts. The Liverpool Society of Artists was established in 1769, with Peter Perez Burdett as its first president. It was Burdett who had urged Wright to come to Liverpool following a professional disappointment in London, the exhibition of his masterpiece Experiment with Bird in an Air Pump in 1768. Although the work was well received by critics, it had failed to sell. Burdett, a cartographer and printmaker Derby who worked in Liverpool, sensed Wright's growing discontent with London and thought he would do well among the burgeoning merchant class of Liverpool who wanted to have their portraits painted. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool has been co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and the Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool. The exhibition coincides with a two-year celebration of Liverpool's cultural heritage, the 800th anniversary of its charter in 2007, and its status as European Capital of Culture in 2008. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the Yale Center for British Art and the Walker Art Gallery in association with Yale University Press. Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool opened at the Walker Art Gallery, where it was on view from November 17, 2007 to February 24, 2008.