GORDON LAMBERT, who died in 2005 aged 85, is the businessman who gave us the memorably quirky expression, "How do they get the figs into the fig rolls?" a slogan he coined while managing director of Jacob's Biscuits.
He is also the man who was an enthusiastic, consistent and eclectic collector of modern art for most of his adult life, and who donated 310 paintings to Imma in 1992, including work by Picasso, Miró and Vasarély, and by Irish artists Patrick Collins, Barrie Cooke and Robert Ballagh.
After 1992, he continued to donate major works to Imma.
Lambert was born in south Dublin in 1919.
He studied commerce at Trinity College, graduating with distinction. He went on to qualify as a chartered accountant, working with Stokes Brothers and Pim, before going in 1944 as assistant accountant to the company where he was to spend the rest of his working life, Jacob and Co.
Lambert understood very early that marketing was vital in competitive business and made the Jacob's brand name high-profile by a number of clever campaigns, including launching the Jacob's radio and television awards and famously sponsoring Ireland's first "agony aunt" radio programme, with Frankie Byrne.
In 1962, as a long-time supporter of improving North-South links he helped organise the first meeting of the Belfast and Dublin junior chambers of commerce.
In 1977, he was nominated to the Seanad by Jack Lynch, a nomination unusual for the time in that Lambert was Protestant.
Highly respected by the business community, he had a lifelong interest in promoting the arts and served on many cultural boards, including the prestigious International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
He was also a governor of the National Gallery of Ireland and a member of the Northern Ireland Arts Council.
Lambert never married.
Rosita Boland