Eef van Brakel was born 3 October 1930 in Driel (Betuwe). His childhood took place in Arnhem, on a houseboat on the Rhine, which explains his connection with water. Rivers, dykes, banks and weirs determined his life as an artist and his vision of nature.
Before his retirement, he worked as a supervisor for the Department of Public Works, which further strengthened his connection with water.
As a painter, he is self-taught. Over the years, he evolved more and more in an expressionist direction. His works became bolder, more colourful and less bound by form. Spacious landscapes sometimes with a house, some cattle, often water, wild clouds, in powerful increasingly primary colours, sometimes still just recognisable. He was friends with Jits Bakker, who was not only a sculptor but also a painter. Until an advanced age, he could be found painting outside, with large canvases, in Oosterbeek or near the Rhine.

Eef van Brakel died on 3 January 2014 at the age of eighty-three.