Boyle, Rowel Friers, John Luke, and Colin Middleton and writers such as Roy McFadden and W R Rodgers. One of his closest friends was his mentor, the Ukrainian artist Paul Nietsche who is credited with not only improving Robinson's technique but more importantly for introducing him to the influential art collector Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl. Frankl too became a close friend and patron, as did the writer F L Green. In Green's 1945 novel Odd Man Out the character of Lukey Mulquin, a young and eccentric portrait painter was inspired by the ebullience of Markey Robinson. Robinson held an exhibition in the unconventional surrounds of Cottar's Kitchen, a cafe on Belfast's Donegall Square in 1950. In the following year Robinson held a small show in the foyer of the Arts Theatre. Throughout the 1950s Robinson turned his hand to toymaking, supplying leprechauns, fairies and goblins for sale by his friend Mrs Ann Stonley, a Scottish native living in Belfast. He showed at the McNiece Gallery, Belfast in 1955 and at Robinson and Cleaver's Gallery in 1956. He exhibited extensively throughout the sixties with solo exhibitions at the Piccolo Gallery in 1961, Furnishings Expert Limited, Belfast and at the Magee Gallery on Donegall Square, both in 1963. Upon his return from a period working in Spain in 1969, he found his studio had been razed in a fire, so he promptly returned to Spain. When Robinson returned to Belfast in the following year he found the civil disturbances too much to process so he relocated to Dublin. Throughout the seventies he continued working and showing widely across Ireland at galleries such as the Oriel where he commanded five shows between 1973 and 1980, and at the Bell Gallery, Belfast in 1971 and the Sligo Art Gallery in 1977. Robinson also took his paintings across to the UK with exhibitions in the Attic Gallery, Cardiff and at the Redfern Gallery, London, and his work was also displayed in the Parisian Eleves Gallery. Many dealers and critics did not take Robinson's talents and work seriously, and yet more dismissed his works as amateurish, unfinished and repetitive. The reality was that only a small cross-section of his works were ever shown, primarily landscapes, because there was no market for the others. For this reason Robinson often repainted the same scenes whilst lamenting the dealers who he felt prohibited him from painting the subjects in which he