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Walter Wright migrated to New Zealand with his widowed mother and older brother Frank in 1877, settling in Auckland. Establishing himself as a professional artist shortly after arriving, he set up a studio in Shortland Street, Auckland and began to exhibit in 1890.

From 1894 Wright spent three years in London studying at the Heatherley School of Art, associated with Walter Sickert, and then in 1901 with Stanhope Forbes in Cornwall.

Renowned for his accuracy and avoidance of exaggeration and sentimentality, Wright skilfully integrates figures into the landscape, juxtaposing the traditional whare with the European clothing of the Maori figures in a pictorial conjunction of past and present.