He was called to the Irish Bar in 1911 and practised law while collecting art privately, influenced by his close friend Sir Hugh Lane.
The collection that in 1935 had numbered just seven works, by 1939 held major pieces such as Tintoretto's Portrait of a Youth (1554), Simone Martini's St. John the Evangelist (1320), Poussin's Tancred and Erminia (1634), Whistler's Symphony in White No.
[6] 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 his final years, he was a frequent guest on the BBC panel show Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?, identifying curiosities from around the world.
In the latter episode, one of only a few which survive in the BBC's archives, he appeared on the panel alongside fellow gallery curator Hugh Shortt and archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, the programme's regular expert panellist.