Image courtesy of R. W. G. Hunt
W. David Wright was a British physicist and color scientist who made very important contributions to colorimetry and visual science. In fact, he is generally regarded as one of the fathers of colorimetry as it is practiced today. David Wright was born on July 6, 1906, in England and died on June 4, 1997, in England [1].
Wright graduated at Imperial College, London University in 1926. He was a Medical Research Council student at Imperial College from 1926 to 1929, and in this period, the spectral color-matching properties of ten observers were measured. He received his Ph.D. in 1929 and a D.Sc. in 1937.
He was a Research Engineer at Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., Pittsburgh, USA, 1929–30, where he undertook early research on color television, long before even black-and-white television was a practicality. The color television system in use today uses Wright’s work as the basis for the reproduction of color. On his return to England, at Imperial College, he became a Lecturer and Reader in Technical Optics, 1930–1951, and Professor of Applied Optics, 1951–73. He was a Research and Consultant Physicist to Electrical and Musical Industries, 1930–1939. He became Kern Professor of Communications at the Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, from 1984 to 1985.
77.1 Color-Matching Functions
W. David Wright had a number of interests, which included optics, vision, photometry, colorimetry, color perception, color applications, and color paintings. He supervised a succession of research students in color science, many of whom subsequently held senior positions in academia and industry.
Wright’s most important research work was the measurement, for ten observers, of the way in which the colors of the spectrum are matched by beams of red, green, and blue light added together. This work, together with a similar study carried out by John Guild (at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, England, with seven additional observers), forms the basis of the international standard for measuring color established by the Commission International de l’Éclairage (CIE). The quality of this experimental work was so high that the standard, although now more than eighty years old, is still in universal use.
Wright’s work on color was the result of funding that was made available by the Medical Research Council to Imperial College for studies pertaining to color in 1926. Prior work on color at Imperial College had been done by Sir William Abney and Wright initially used the same laboratory that Abney had used in 1877. Abney’s influence is also evident in the concept behind Wright’s colorimeter, which used prisms to generate the color-matching primaries.
The Perception of Light, Blackie, 1938
Researches on Normal and Defective Colour Vision, Kimpton, 1946
The Measurement of Colour, Hilger, 1944 (2nd ed. 1958, 3rd ed. 1964, 4th ed. 1969)
Photometry and the Eye, Hatton, 1950
The Rays are not Coloured, Hilger, 1967
The Physical Society Thomas Young Oration, 1951
Honorary D.Sc. City University, 1971
The AIC (International Colour Association) Judd Award, 1977
Honorary D.Sc. University of Waterloo, Canada, 1991
Founder of The Physical Society Colour Group, 1941
Chairman, The Physical Society, Colour Group, 1941–43
Vice President, The Physical Society, 1948–50
Secretary, International Commission for Optics, 1953–66
Chairman, The Physical Society Optical Group, 1956–59
President, International Colour Association (AIC), 1967–69
Chairman, The Colour Group (Great Britain), 1973–75