Cecil Maguire was born in Lurgan in 1930 and graduated from the Queen's University Belfast in 1951. He then took a post at Lurgan College as the Senior English Master. In 1967 he became an associate of the Royal Ulster Academy. Maguire began exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1971. From 1982 to 1992 he exhibited at the Oriel Gallery in Dublin in a series of solo exhibitions. In 1981 he retired from teaching at Lurgan College to concentrate on painting and traveling. In 1993 he was a Gold Medal Award winner at the Royal Ulster Academy.

Maguire now divides his time between Italy, Belfast and the West of Ireland but lives and works for a great part of the year in Roundstone, Connemara where he feels very much at home in an area which has always been the inspiration for much of his work - an area of tranquility and ever changing landscape.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBTIONS
Kenny Gallery, Galway
Oriel Gallery, Dublin
Bell Gallery, Belfast
Davidson Gallery, Hollywood, Co Down                                                                                             Leinster Gallery, Dublin.
COLLECTIONS INCLUDE
The United Nations Headquarters, New York
The Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland
The Ulster Museum, Belfast
Queens University, Belfast
Aer Rianta, Dublin
The Haverty Trust
Provincial Bank of Ireland
Ulster Television plc
The National Self portrait Collection of Ireland