Oliver Dowling traces the artistic development of Cecil King, currently the subject of a retrospective at IMMA, and a highly regarded artist who used his business acumen to champion contemporary art in Ireland
I first met Cecil King in 1960, just a few years after he had discovered the excitement of painting that was to change his life completely. Working in business, at the age of thirty-three Cecil had decided to devote himself to a life in art; painting, collecting and being part of a society that was to add much enrichment to his earlier years in Rathdrum and Dundalk and his other passion An Óige. He had become a member of that very small artistic community in Dublin in the post-war era and was a prime mover in promoting the Contemporary Irish Art Society in 1964 and, of course, the first great ROSC exhibition in 1967 with which he was involved until ROSC ’84. I suppose Cecil was drawn to a life in the arts through the many friends he had met from the time he arrived in Dublin
