Pick up will be from the Crab & Winkle, Werrington at 08:00 then onto the Layby opposite B&M at the Orton Centre at 08:15
Payment for this trip by card only please

Derby Museums is home to the world’s largest collection of works by Joseph Wright of Derby but his art also graces the walls of some of the most famous galleries, including The Hermitage in St Petersburg, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Britain, and the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

Wright of Derby: From the Shadows is the first major exhibition dedicated to the British artist’s ‘candlelight’ paintings. We celebrate and look again at his most admired works.

Illuminated faces gather around a variety of objects – from classical sculptures and scientific instruments to bones, bladders and animals. Through his unflinching scenes of people watching, Wright of Derby proposes moral questions about acts of looking. The strong light and deep shadows create drama, reminding us of great painters from earlier centuries like Caravaggio.

Challenging the traditionally held view of Wright of Derby as a figurehead of the Enlightenment, this exhibition contributes to the ongoing re-evaluation of the artist, portraying him not merely as a ‘painter of light’. More than virtuoso scenes of dramatic light and shade, Wright of Derby used the night-time to explore deeper and more sombre themes, including death, melancholy, morality, scepticism and the sublime.

With over twenty works, including other paintings, mezzotints, works on paper and objects the exhibition explores both Wright of Derby’s artistic practice and the historic context of scientific and artistic development in which they were made.