HE BECAME one of England’s favourite artists, but the 18th- century painter Joseph Wright of Derby was for a while Joseph Wright of Liverpool.

He spent four years in the city revitalising the arts community and leaving a strong artistic legacy.

Tomorrow, an exhibition celebrating this little-known period in his life will open at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery before heading next year to the USA.

For curator Alex Kidson, Wright’s appearance in Liverpool in 1768 marked a watershed in the city’s artistic life.

“He encouraged many artists in the city and gave them more confidence.

“Street guides of the time suggested there were more than a dozen painters in the city.”

American art expert Elizabeth Barker, who has helped organise the exhibition, has made a study of Wright, famed for his candlelight paintings.

“Wright seems to have been a rather serious man, not exactly the life and soul of the party, drank very little. But he had good friends and was much admired,” she says.

He had arrived in Liverpool at the urging of his friend, cartographer Peter Perez Burdett, who had suggested there were people willing to commission portraits.

His first is thought to have been of 95-year-old Richard Gildart, a ship-owner with links to the slave trade and three-times mayor. The unflattering picture shows a grumpy-looking man with a stick.

Wright charged around £10 for a half-sized portrait and £30 for a larger one, not bad money for those days.

* JOSEPH WRIGHT of Derby in Liverpool opens at the Walker Art Gallery tomorrow until February 24. Free.