Lucien Jonas 1880 - 1947 Landscape Sarthe Or Normandy Oil On Canvas 55x46 Cm Signed Dated 1946

Lucien Hector Jonas, born April 8, 1880 in Anzin, died September 20, 1947 in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, is a French painter. Born into a family of industrialists from the North of France, Lucien Jonas, a painter of history and genre, graduated in June 1898 with a bachelor's degree in literature. He continued his studies in Valenciennes with Joseph-Fortuné-Séraphin Layraud and also studied music theory and violin for seven years at the Valenciennes Conservatory.

In 1899, he entered the School of Fine Arts in Paris. In 1900, he was admitted there definitively and, throughout his school years, prizes followed one another and made him stand out. He became a member of the Society of French Artists in 1901.

From 1902, Lucien Jonas also works in the studio of Albert Maignan, with whom he develops a sincere friendship.
At the same time, he meets Henri Harpignies who quickly shows affection for the man he considers his protégé.
In 1904, he took advantage of his stays in Anzin and the distillery's vast warehouses to paint large compositions, inspired by the life around him. A drama of the mine (The Consolations) will earn him the silver medal at the 1905 Salon.
Three other prizes - the Chenavard, Trémont and Stillmann prizes - came to encourage him a little more.
Lucien Jonas obtained the second grand prix de Rome in 1905 (the first prize was not awarded that year), he was celebrated in Valenciennes with his friend Lucien Brasseur, first grand prize in sculpture, then obtained the gold medal (out of competition) with a travel grant in 1907.
In 1907, the King of Siam acquired one of his works, entitled Les Rouffions, kept in the Royal Palace in Bangkok. On May 2, 1908, Lucien Jonas married Suzanne Bedorez, daughter of Georges Bedorez, doctor of law, advisor to the Court of Cassation, Knight of the Legion of Honor3 , with whom he had three children : Pierre, Solange (wife of René Guillaume, magistrate) and Jacques. The couple moved to Boulevard Raspail in Paris.

In 1911, the Conseil supérieur des beaux-arts awarded him the national prize for the painting La Consultation. In February 1915, he is approved "Military Painter attached to the Museum of the Army". From mission to mission, he traveled from Belgium to the Vosges, then he was especially asked to paint portraits of military leaders, such as French (March 15, 1915), Pershing (August 14, 1917, currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), Foch (the day after his nomination as Generalissimo). In all, seven to eight hundred oil panels, and nearly four thousand drawings reproduced in large numbers in L'Illustration, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, Lectures pour tous and in allied newspapers. In 1916, he was appointed official painter of the Navy. The war inspired him to create popular compositions that decorated various public buildings. He often describes the life of the miners and the "Black Country". He was also successful with murals in the Art Deco style and decorated many buildings, notably in Paris (Maison des Centraux) and Valenciennes (town hall, chamber of commerce).
In 1923, he participated with his drawings in the work of Jules Mousseron (ill. Lucien Jonas), La terre des Galibots : Poésies patoises, Lille, Valenciennes et Denain or at the author's home 2 rue de Villars à Denain, 1923, 147 p., Scènes du pays minier. - Les nouvelles prouesses de Cafougnette - Le voyage au long d'eune fosse -Glossaire du patois "rouchi" (The new prowess of Cafougnette - The journey along a pit -Glossary of the "rouchi" patois)
In 1926, he was named Rosati d'honneur4, in 1929, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor5, and on July 6, 1932, he was appointed Air Painter.
In 1933, it is the beginning of his collaboration with the Bank of France for the creation of banknotes including the 10 francs Minor and the 20 francs Fisherman. In 1934, Lucien Jonas, completes an important work, a triptych entitled The Response of Souls to the Call of Christ6.

6 In 1937, he created sets for the Universal Exhibition in Paris and the portrait of Louis de Broglie. In 1942, he creates an important cardboard of tapestry for the Manufacture des Gobelins: Le Travail pour la France. In 1943, he offers seventeen large compositions on the life of the Virgin in the Spanish church of the street of the Pompe in Paris.
In 1944, he realizes the portraits of the generals Kœnig and De Larminat (Paris, museum of the Order of the Liberation), as well as that of the general De Lattre de Tassigny. He received the Francisque7
In 1945, at the Salon des artistes français, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for painting a fourteen-meter long fresco with some one hundred and twenty characters, entitled Furor teutonicus.
In August 1947, at La Flèche, after a particularly painful crisis, he painted his last outdoor scenes in the garden of his in-laws9. 9 He returns to Paris, where he dies on September 20. He is buried at La Flèche in the Sarthe region of France, in a tomb located, as he wished, next to those of the French soldiers of remembrance.