Wright of Derby: From the Shadows, National Gallery review

Joseph Wright was an incredibly unique painter who created powerful, realistic masterpieces with dramatic lighting. The relatively small but extremely rich exhibition at the National Gallery sheds light on the most interesting period of Wright’s extraordinary career. The Enlightenment, of course, played a very important role in his thinking and work, but this beautiful exhibition also aims to show how his dark, night-time paintings explored the macabre, morality, melancholy, and death.

Joseph Wright 'of Derby', 'A Philosopher giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in the Place of the Sun', exhibited 1766 © Derby Museums

The exhibition at the National Gallery shows a most interesting period in quite the fantastic pioneering career of Joseph Wright. He was based in Derby for most of his career, hence the name “Wright of Derby,” and he was remarkably more advanced and daring than his counterparts both in London and Paris. Inspired by the Lunar Society, which was a dining club in Birmingham in the 1760s and 1770s, he was one of the drivers of Enlightenment thinking and scientific innovation.

The exhibition is dramatic and takes full advantage of the striking use of light and shadow, which is indeed the hallmark of Joseph Wright of Derby. In paintings like An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) or A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp Is Put in the Place of the Sun (exhibited 1766), a single lamp or candle becomes an absolute theatrical spotlight, casting faces, expressions, and objects into sharp relief. The darkness around them heightens the drama, making viewers feel as though they have stepped into the scene.

This show is the first major exhibition dedicated to Wright’s “candlelight” works, and it challenges the traditional view of him as merely a painter of Enlightenment optimism. It also emphasises how Wright used night and darkness to explore deeper themes such as mortality and sorrow. His candlelit scenes glow with drama, where science, fear, wonder, and moral tension all flicker in the same frame.

Joseph Wright 'of Derby', 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump', 1768 © The National Gallery, London

The exhibition is not only about his incredible paintings; it also includes mezzotints, drawings, and objects, which clearly show that Wright’s art was not only for elite patrons, but were also aimed at a broader public. He democratised art.

His most famous painting, and one of the gems in the National Gallery’s collection, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, is more than just a depiction of the Industrial Revolution and scientific experimentation; it can also be seen as a picture about religion and the search for God in nature. It becomes a moral drama about life, empathy, and performance. These paintings still speak to us now; they force us to reflect on our own era in how we view discovery, technology, and ethics.

The exhibition Wright of Derby: From the Shadows is more than a beautiful display of old masterpieces. It is a carefully curated reconsideration of an important artist, one who used light not just to reveal, but also to question timeless questions about curiosity, wonder, morality, and mortality. 

Date: 7 November 2025 - 10 May 2026. Location: The National Gallery. Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DN.  Price: from £12. Concessions available. Book now

Words by Massoumeh Safinia