Bodkin was born in Dublin, the eldest son of Matthias McDonnell Bodkin, a nationalist journalist, judge and Member of Parliament. Graduating from the Royal University of Ireland in 1908 he practised law from 1911 until 1916 while collecting art privately, influenced by his uncle Sir Hugh Lane. With the death of Lane in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 Bodkin was charged with ensuring that Lane's collection of art was displayed in Dublin – a dispute that would only finally be settled in 1957 and about which Bodkin was to write Hugh Lane and his Pictures in 1932. Bodkin left the legal profession in 1916 to become a Governor of the National Gallery of Ireland, being appointed Director in 1927. He also served in 1926 on the committee that commissioned the design of the new coinage of the Republic of Ireland from Percy Metcalfe. In 1935 Bodkin left Ireland on being appointed Director of the newly established Barber Institute of Fine Arts and Barber Professor of Fine Art at the University of Birmingham. The funds available to the Barber Institute for the purchase of new works compared favourably even to some national museums and Bodkin was able to make a string of exceptional purchases in the depressed art market around the time of the Second World War. The collection that in 1935 had numbered just seven works, by 1939 held major pieces such as Tintoretto's Portrait of a Youth, Simone Martini's St. John the Evangelist, Poussin's Tancred and Erminia, Whistler's Symphony in White No. III and John van Nost the Elder's Equestrian Statue Of George I. Bodkin retired in 1952 but retained control over acquisitions until 1959 – his successor as Director and Professor Ellis Waterhouse wistfully referred to Bodkin's wayward later purchases as "Acts of Bod". Bodkin was also an active broadcaster and author, publishing personal reminiscences and translations of modern French poetry as well as works of art history and criticism. In particular his The Approach to Painting, an introduction for a popular audience, ran through many editions over the succeeding 30 years. A few years before his death he appeared on the BBCpanel showAnimal, Vegetable or Mineral? identifying curiosities from around the world, along with museum curator Hugh Shortt and archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler. He was awarded the Civil Division of the Order of St. Gregory the Great for services to his church. A bust of Bodkin, previously exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1958, was donated to the Barber by its sculptor, Sir Charles Wheeler, President of the Royal Academy and a personal friend of Bodkin's, on the latter's death. Bodkin's remains were interred in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in March 1960 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC’s Gosta Green Studios in Birmingham.
