With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for finding this artist and his beautiful painting of the family’s cook darning socks during a Zeppelin Raid in WW1
Born John Brakewell Baldwin in Eltham, Kent in 1885, Brake's parents were John Baldwin, a Civil Engineer, and his wife, Sarah A. Baldwin, nee Clarke. Educated at Forest School, Walthamstow, Brake went on to study art.
On 6th April 1911, Brake married Edith Mary Wilson in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Edith was the daughter of Edith Berridge (who was also an artist), and the stepdaughter of Thomas Berridge, an engineer.
Between 1912 and 1914, Brake Baldwin's work was exhibited widely, frequently with famous artists such as Lavery, Orpen and Sargent at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, or alongside Glyn Philpot, Augustus John and Walter Sickert at the National Portrait Society. Brake’s work regularly received favourable write-ups in London newspapers.
During the First World War, Brake lived in London and was the Quartermaster of the 31st London Division, Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.). He devoted himself unsparingly to Red Cross work and died after an operation for internal problems on 30 July 1915 at a London nursing home. The men of his Division paid a last tribute by forming an escort and bearing the coffin to the train at Paddington for the journey to Leamington Spa where the funeral was held.
Sources: Find my Past, Free BMD and
https://www.courtgallery.com/artists/653-brake-baldwin/works/10747/
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000635/19150716/172/0006
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001670/19150807/102/0004
