biografia di Joseph WRIGHT (1756-1793)

Birth place: Bordentown, NJ

Death place: Philadelphia

Addresses: Philadelphia, 1783-86; NYC, 1786-90, Phila., 1790-93

Profession: Portrait painter, modeler in clay and wax, medallist, die sinker and etcher

Studied: learned to model in wax with his mother Patience Lovell Wright; painting under Benjamin West and Wright's brother-in-law John Hoppner, London

Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1780, 1782

Work: Pa. Hist. Soc.; PAFA; Md. Hist. Soc.; Cleveland Mus; Winterthur (DE) Mus. owns a bas-relief portrait of Washington

Comments: Son of Joseph and Patience Lovell Wright (see entry). Moved to NYC after his father's death in 1769. When his mother traveled to England in 1772, Joseph and his sisters remained in America, later joining her in London where he studied art with his mother, and with Benjamin West and John Hoppner. He visited Paris in 1782, returning to America in 1783 and settling in Philadelphia. Wright is best known for his portraits of Washington, one of which he painted at Princeton. Of his Washington portraits, there are two main types: a three-quarter length bust (Md. Hist. Soc. and Pa. Hist. Soc.) and a profile bust of c.1790 (example in the Cleveland Mus.). He also modeled a clay bust of Washington. In 1792 he became a designer and die sinker for the U.S. Mint, designing medals and coins. He died in Phila. during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793.

Sources: G&W; DAB; Kimball, Joseph Wright and His Portraits of Washington," ten repros.; Perrine, The Wright Family of Oyster Bay, 89-92; Loubat, Medallic History of the U.S., pl. 6; Dunlap, History; Prime, II, 39; Gottesman, II, 60a, 108, 1286; Storer, "The Manly-Washington Medal"; Swan, BA; Rutledge, PA; Graves, Dictionary; Morgan and Fielding, Life Portraits of Washington. More recently, see Baigell, Dictionary.