Sir Edward Poynter, PRA, Royal Academy business.

40 pieces

Edward Poynter attended the Royal Academy schools and spent part of his early career in Paris. He began to exhibit in 1861, was elected an Associate in 1869 and a full member in 1877. He became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at UCL in 1871 and was later Principal of the National Art Training School and Director of Art at the South Kensington Museum. In 1894 he was appointed Director of the National Gallery and two years later elected President of the Royal Academy at which point his exertions on the behalf of British Art were recognised by a Knighthood.

The letters concern a wide variety of subjects relating to the general administration of the Academy and its exhibitions.

Charles Bell asserts in a letter that accompanied the archive that the material was extracted from Sir Edward's papers after his death. It represents all that survives of the official Academy business element of the Poynter archive. Bell states that all printed reports, agendas, returns on exhibition attendance and lists of possible loans have been destroyed; the letters form a residue.

Charles Bell, nephew of Sir Edward, presented this archive in 1920.