An Academy by Lamplight 1789. Private Collection

The Liverpool years of one of England’s most popular and distinctive painters, Joseph Wright of Derby, are explored in a major new exhibition of paintings running at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool until February 24 2008.

Wright spent three highly productive years in Liverpool producing a series of fine portraits as well as number of his trademark candlelight works.

His Liverpool years coincided with the city’s growing status as a major world port and the Walker has brought together more than 80 works and exhibits to offer both fascinating insight into a little-known period in the painter’s life and a snapshot of Liverpool’s burgeoning cultural Renaissance in the late 1700s.

It was also a very productive period for the artist. His account book, on display in the exhibition, lists many of the paintings he produced, and reveals that in 1769 he was knocking out portraits at the rate of one every nine or ten days.

Fleetwood Hesketh 1769. National Museums Liverpool

The business would have come as a welcome relief for a painter in need of new impetus, new air and some new commissions. Wright had just painted his famous Air Pump masterpiece, which was exhibited in London in 1768, but although it was well received, it did not sell and he went to Liverpool because he felt his career was faltering and he needed a change of direction.

“Not many people have paid much attention to Wright's Liverpool years,” said Alex Kidson, the Walker’s curator of British Art. “Nobody has really studied the precise relationship between this three year visit and what local artists were doing.”

“George Stubbs, who was years older than Wright, was from Liverpool. He painted portraits in the town but found the atmosphere stultifying and not conducive to his ambitions. It seemed major artists could not wait to get out of Liverpool. Wright’s visit changed all that – local artists were given the confidence to create their own cultural community.”

Wright’s close friend Peter Perez Burdett was a cartographer who worked in Derby before his map-making work brought him to Liverpool. He encouraged Wright to come to Liverpool, telling him that there were many people who wanted to have their portraits painted.

Two Boys Blowing a Bladder by Candlelight, 1770. The Henry E. Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Included in the exhibition is the portrait of Richard Gildart painted when the slave trading former Liverpool mayor was 95 years old. It is probably the first portrait Wright did in Liverpool, as it is the only dated 1768.

Other portraits include those of Sarah Clayton, John Tarleton, Fleetwood and Frances Hesketh and Susannah Leigh.

But Wright’s time in Liverpool wasn’t just about portraiture and commissions. He also tapped into the city’s growing groundswell of interest in the visual arts. The Liverpool Society of Artists was set up in 1769 with Burdett as the first president and Wright’s presence undoubtedly spurred Liverpool’s dawn of taste, feeding the thirst for artistic life in the growing town.

Some fine examples of Wright’s trademark candlelight pieces painted during this time can also be seen in the exhibition, including the Philosopher (known as The Hermit) and An Academy by Lamplight, which is full of the typical detail and drama of his more famous works.

Similar drama is to be found in A Blacksmith’s Shop and The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone Discovers Phosphorus. Two Boys Blowing a Bladder and Two Girls Decorating a Cat meanwhile reveal the simple sentimental taste of the time.

Richard Gildart, 1768. National Museums Liverpool

Interestingly, these well-known historical pictures were not painted for Liverpool patrons but were to be sold in London exhibitions. However, in the context of his Liverpool years the paintings reveal an artist at height of his powers and very much comfortable with his position and surroundings.

“This exhibition is highly appropriate in Capital of Culture year,” added Alex, “because it shows where Liverpool’s cultural pride started 240 years ago.”