The Virtual Print Room is a subject taught at the University of Melbourne which makes the outstanding collection of Renaissance and Baroque Prints in the Baillieu Library accessible to students for teaching on-line for the first time. The library houses one of the largest collections of graphic works in Australia. The collection, which was formed in London in the 1920s, has rarely been studied. Students are given the chance to work on a real collection with the most modern technological means. The course takes the study of printmaking away from the white-gloved world of the conventional print room and into the realm of scientific digital technology and discovery. A virtual exhibition is created by students working in teams. The students will study as if they were curators in a museum working with exhibition proposals for a director.
The University of Melbourne, Australia, is home to one of the world's best collection of prints. The nucleus of the collection, about 3000 prints, was donated to the University in 1959 by Dr John Orde Poynton (1906-2001). Prior to receiving this generous gift the Baillieu Library housed only a small collection of prints. When the Poynton prints were presented to the University, augmented by later significant donations, the University Print Collection became comparable in size to those state galleries within Australia.
The Poynton prints were acquired from small print and book dealers in the Charring Cross Road area of London by Orde Poynton's father Dr Frederick John Poynton (1869-1943). Poynton senior was the son of the Rev. F.J. Poynton, Rector of Kelston, Bath, and Alice Constance, the youngest daughter of Sir W.P. Campbell-Orde, the 3rd Baronet. The family home of the Campbell-Orde's, named Kilmory in Argyllsire, was situated on property that belonged to the Duke of Argyll.
J.F. Poynton collected prints, on and off, all his life and Poynton jnr recalls that he began to collect prints in the 1920s while he was at Cambridge studying to enter the medical profession and follow in his father's footsteps. In addition to medicine, Poynton studied economics at Cambridge under Maynard Keynes. During the depression of the 1920s small dealers priced prints quite cheaply. A fine Rembrandt etching could be acquired for two or three pounds while larger dealers, such as Colnaghi's, asked premium prices for their works on paper.
Poynton junior recalls visiting the British Museum Print Room as a teenager with his father, to meet with the assistant keeper of prints, Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), whose reputation as an art scholar was built upon the early attention he gave to Eastern Art and its interpretation. Binyon was also a notable poet and is perhaps best remembered as the author of the 1914 war elegy 'For the fallen' which is recited annually to this day at ceremonies that commemorate all those who died in war. The Keeper of Prints at the British Museum, Campbell Dodgson, and Arthur Hind, author of numerous publications on etching and engraving, also offered their expertise in examining prints brought to the Museum by the Poyntons. It was Binyon, however, who contributed most to help shape the quality aspects of the Poynton Collection. Binyon was a friend of Poynton senior. Theirs was an association that was formed at the time when a congenial environment enveloped the print room of the British Museum, when dealers and collectors would meet there and contacts were made and friendships formed.
It was the most expensive prints that Poynton took to Binyon for checking. Poynton, a prominent figure in medical circles, held these prints on offer from dealers who knew him. Together Binyon and Poynton would compare the prints on offer to those by the same artists in the collection of the British Museum so as to determine states. General discussion concerning the prints also ensued and some were given or exchanged as not being in the great public repository.
The collection of prints assembled by Orde Poynton, stored in Frush's warehouse in Baker Street, London, was destroyed by fire during a bombing raid in World War II. During the war Poynton senior kept his independent collection of prints in Frosts storage in Bath until its subsequent removal to another storage site in Bristol.
Poynton snr died in 1943. At the time of his death his son was a prisoner of war held captive in Malaysia. After his liberation Poynton jnr was brought to Australia by the Red Cross to regain his depleted strength. He lived briefly first in Perth before moving to Adelaide where he eventually became Director of the Institute for Medical and Vetinary Sciences, situated in the grounds of the Adelaide hospital. Poynton jnr inherited his father's prints which were shipped out to Australia. The collection includes the work of about 600 artists, for the most part Flemish, Italian, French and British and aptly illustrates the art of engraving, etching, mezzotinting, the woodcut, etc., form about 1500 to 1800. Poynton jrn died on 13 February 2001. He was nearly 95.
