Raven Haired

Breakspeare was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham where he initially work as an apprentice to a firm of jappaners and studied at the Birmingham School of Design in his free time. He started exhibiting with the Birmingham Society of Artists in 1874 and was one of the first Associate members in 1881, being elected a full member in 1884. He spent a short time in Paris in 1879. In the mid 1880s he visited Newlyn where a group of other Birmingham artists were helping to establish a colony of artists. He settled in London and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1883 and also showed at the Royal Society of British Artists and Grafton Gallery.