Wright of Derby: From the Shadows
Pay What You Wish
Each Friday evening from 28 November 2025 - 24 April 2026*, we invite visitors to pay what they wish for Wright of Derby: Beyond the Shadows.
This means you can pay as little as £1 or as much as you’d like to experience Wright's beautiful candlelit world.
How to book
- Choose any Friday between 28 November 2025 and 24 April 2026.
- Select a time slot from 5.30pm onwards.
- Pick the ‘Pay What You Wish’ ticket option.
- Enter your chosen amount.
- Select the number of tickets you want and add them to your basket.
- Complete your order.
*Pay What You Wish tickets are available to book in advance online, or on the day on a walk-up basis, for time slots from 5.30-7.45pm (inclusive), every Friday, from 28 November 2025 - 24 April 2026.
Wright of Derby: From the Shadows
In an interplay of light and darkness, Joseph Wright of Derby conjures sublime pictures of discovery and learning.
'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.
Watch, along with the people he paints, as his scenes of spectacle and wonder unfold.
The Thompson Family Charitable Trust
The Sunley Room exhibition programme is supported by the Bernard Sunley Foundation
Allan Murray-Jones and Deborah Finkler
Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation
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