Des O'Sullivan: Oliver Dowling art collection at 'exceptional' James Adam sale

'Oliver Dowling died in January. His collection bears witness to a true pioneer with rigorous standards'

Left, Berlin Suite by Cecil King (1921-1986) at James Adam, above left, Concurring Rhythms by Alice Berger Hammerschlag, and below left, 'Rose Stem and Pot' by Derrick Greaves.

At a time when Irish art seemed to exist mostly in a landscape-laden time warp from around the turn of the 20th century when Irish modernism existed in a vacuum,

IMMA (the Irish Museum of Modern Art) was far in the future and the avant-garde was regarded as deluded and possibly even heathen, Oliver Dowling opened his gallery on Kildare Street in Dublin in 1975 with a focus on minimalism, conceptualism, neo-expressionism and other abstractions.