John Baldwin · The Sculptor

Margaret McGrath, born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Henry Joseph Baldwin, born in New York City, married and grew a family of seven; in sequence . . . Howard, Dolores, Dorothy, Jack and Gerard. All five children were born in New York City. The Baldwins were a working-class family . . . Irish Catholic and Democratic. Henry, aka Harry, a garment cutter in the garment district, was a Union man who worked tirelessly for the 8-hour day.

Margaret, a stay-at-home mother, took care of the home and nurtured a family line of artists. Howard, his son Don, and Gerard became artists/animators, Jack became a fine artist, a teacher/professor and married a fine artist, Ruth Minnick, aka Bunny. Dorothy married an artist/animator, George Cannata, Sr., and had two children, Dolores and George, Jr., both artists. Older sister Dolores had a son Jack Killgrew, an artist. According to Gerard,¹ the last living Baldwin of the original family of seven . . .
“No silver spoons for this family . . .” all were “. . . born with a pencil.”

At Jack’s DeWitt High School graduation ceremony, Jack was called to the stage for so many awards the audience began to laugh! The crowning award was a Guggenheim Scholarship to Pratt Institute. When Jack was invited to a meeting at Peggy Guggnheim’s home, he arrived via subway, spiffy in his Sunday suit and a pair of brand new Tom McAnn shoes.

During the Great Depression jobs were scarce in New York City . . . Howard and Dorothy found work and year-round sunshine in Los Angeles. Shortly after, Henry followed them to California seeking work which he found as a garment cutter. He sent for Margaret, Jack and Gerard to join him. Jack found work as a cartoonist for Screen Gems, a division of Columbia Pictures.

Curriculum Vitae

References on the Contact web page

Jack, The Hunter
Jack the mighty squirrel hunter

Relatives, 1953
Family of artists 1953: Jack, George Cannata, Jr., Gerard Baldwin, George Cannata, Sr.

In the Army Airforce

After Pearl Harbor, both Howard and Jack enlisted in the Army Air Forces. Jack was sent to Flight School. It became apparent that he could best serve the Army Air Forces as an artist, model builder. He spent the next 13 months in India on a hush-hush mission. Release from the Air Corps freed Jack to enroll in Chouinard Art School on the GI Bill of Rights. But then he heard about the “GI Paradise” and decided to apply to the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes in Mexico.

Jack in army uniform
The patch is for the China, Burma, India Theater of War

Sketch Board Ship
Sketch drawn aboard ship

Sketch
Jack sent sketch books to Gerard about the Indian people and their culture . . . nothing about his mission.

The Art Student

6000 ex GIs
applied to the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Jack was
one of 100 accepted.

Serious art thinking
Serious art making.

Jose Clemente Orozco with students, Jack kneeling

David Alfaro Siqueiros was hired as a guest artist by the director of the school, Alfredo Campanella

The Art Teacher

Giving a group critique

One on one

The House that Jack built
This is the beginning house that Jack Built

Student
designed by brother Gerard

The House that Jack built

Parade commemorating
the Mexican Independence
from Spain
16 September 1810

Jack is the flag bearer . . .
16 September 1949

“Trouble in Paradise”²

Clash! . . . Campanella, the director of Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes, and Siqueiros over the growing cost of materials for the mural that was to be “the great achievement of the class of 1948 - 49,” a mural which would cover the walls, floor and cathedral ceiling in a 5,555 square foot room. As the viewer walked through the room the perspective would change. Campanella effectively killed the project.The teachers boycotted in support of Siqueiros. At the same time the students had many grievances with Campanella who was milking the school profits and neglecting the school.The students boycotted, supporting the teachers and in protest against Campanella. Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes closed.

The teachers and students went to work with hammer
and saw to refurbish an old building to create a new school.The Mexican government approved it. The U.S. did not, no accreditation, no more GI money. Still, Instituto Allende opened in 1951.

Campanella, smarting from humiliation, bribed goverment agents to arrest the foreign teachers using the pretext that they were Communists; guilt by association with Siquerios, a leading Communist in Mexico.
Note: Philip Stein, Siqueiros’ biographer, wrote that Siqueiros did not believe in discussing his political beliefs with students. “It was a no, no.”

At gunpoint the foreign teachers and their wives were rounded up, put on a train and shipped north of the border. The episode came to an end as related by Reva Brooks in a letter to friends, “Finally a General Ignacio Beteta (who is our personal friend thru his love of Leonard’s work) gets the Ministry of the Interior to revoke the deportation.”

Jack was considering hitch-hiking home to California when the fiasco ended.

A more complete account of this fascinating, tumultuous time can be read in, Leonard and Reva Brooks: Artists in Exile, by John Virtue.³

		Miguel Aleman President of Mexico and Jack

Stirling Dickenson, Jack, ???, Rico LeBrun, James Pinto, Rufino Tamayo and Enrique Fernandez Martinez, governor of Guanajuato

Laredo, Texas hotel room: Jack, Leonard Brooks, Stirling Dickinson and Howard Jackson

			October 1951 Ex GIs Jack and Bunny wed in San Miguel December 8, 1951 John Baldwin and Ruth Minnick, were formally married in the Valley Forge Chapel, Pennsylvania http://www.ruthbaldwinpainter.com

			Jack and Bunny in Florida

	In 1967 Ohio University Professor of Art, Jack Baldwin, took an academic year in Europe to study, in his words “. . . Roman and Greek cultures and sculpture.” After the many faceted influences with sharp cultural contrasts . . . New York City with Los Angeles; the USA with India and Mexico . . .Baldwin went back to restudy what every serious beginning art student learns . . . Classical Art. In 1971 he researched bronze casting. The majestic bronzes came out of that period of study. Facts in Jack Baldwin’s career . . . in his own words, including the period of the bronzes, can be followed by clicking on Curriculum Vitae.