- Also known as
-
H J L Wright
-
primary name: Wright, Harold
-
other name: Wright, Harold James Lean
- Details
- individual; collector; dealer/auction house; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1885-1961
- Biography
- Print dealer, author of numerous catalogues, and director of Colnaghi. Joined Obach & Co in 1903, and moved with it to Colnaghi when the two firms merged in 1911. His widow Isobel Holmes (d.1965), founded the Harold Wright scholarship in his memory (for students from Australia), and the Sarah & William Holmes scholarship (in memory of her parents, for students from New Zealand). Since 1983 they have been combined into one. She also, in accordance with his wishes, offered to the BM his collection of Lionel Lindsay, William Palmer Robins, Henry Stuart Brown and others (the rest of his collection was sold at Sotheby's in Jan/Feb 1962 for £18,000). The BM only kept a few works, and the remainder was given to the National Art Gallery of New Zealand (now Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa) and the Baillieu Library of the University of Melbourne. Wright's papers are in the University library in Glasgow (see 'Print Quarterly' in 1990s), and more is in the Ashmolean; his correspondence with Lionel Lindsay in the Mitchell Library (see David Maskill in 'Journal of NZ Art History', 2003, pp.81-90).
- Bibliography
- David Maskill, '"Bouvard et Pecuchet": The Harold Wright collection of prints by Lionel Lindsay at Te Papa', Journal of New Zealand Art History, vol.24 (2003), pp. 81-90.
David Maskill, 'Imperial lines: Harold Wright (1885-1961) printmaking and collecting at the end of Empire', in Melbourne Art Journal 11/12 2009, pp.86-103.
N. Stogdon, 'A descriptive catalogue of the etchings by Rembrandt in a private collection, Switzerland', s.l., 2011, p.ia
David Maskill, Print Quarterly, 2018, pp.270-79, 'Impressions of a print dealer, Harold Wright and the etching boom'
Kerianne Stone, ed. 'Horizon Lines: marking 50 years of print scholarship', a collection of essays by Harold Wright scholars, including an intro biography by D Maskill on Wright, p.xi and with references to Wright throughout the essays (University of Melbourne Library, 2019)
Manuscripts and archives in P&D BM: Wright's notes for a catalogue of prints by Elizabeth Fyfe (c.240.b.4); notes for a catalogue of prints by Walter Sickert (c.240.a.1); typescript for his published catalogue of prints by Charles Meryon (c.240.b.3)
