Painter in oil and watercolour, noted for interiors and still life, who lived in London’s East End. Silk was gassed during Army service in World War I. Views done then in France and on holiday and Edinburgh were among his non-London works. He was an unmarried basket-maker who worked for a time for an uncle who had a factory. Silk was the brother of the artist Elwin Hawthorne’s mother and lived with the family in Bow. Like Hawthorne he showed at Lefevre Gallery with the East London Group, started by John Cooper through his classes at Bow and Bromley Evening Institute; at Agnew; and he had a solo exhibition of watercolours at Walter Bull & Sanders in 1931. The poet and artist Laurence Binyon was among collectors of Silk’s work.