biography of Francis Coates JONES (1857-1932)

Birth place: Baltimore, MD

Addresses: France (1876-1888); NYC (1888-on)/So. Egremont, MA (summers)

Profession: Mural, genre, and figure painter, illustrator, teacher

Studied: …cole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, with Henri Lehmann, 1877; Acad. Julian, Paris, with Boulanger, J. Lefebvre, 1880-88.

Exhibited: NAD, 1877-1933 ( Clark prize, best figure painting, 1885), (Isidor medal for figure painting, 1913); Brooklyn AA, 1877-85; PAFA Ann., 1879, 1881 (as Frank C. Jones), 1892-98, 1905, 1918; Boston AC, 1887-1909; AIC; Pan-Am. Expo, Buffalo, 1901 (medal); SAA, 1904 (prize); St. Louis Expo, 1904 (medal); Corcoran Gal., 1908-14 (4 times); Pan-Pacific Expo, San Francisco, 1915 (medal)

Member: ANA, 1885; NA, 1894; SAA, 1882; AWCS; Arch. Lg., 1888; Mural Painters; NIAL; NAC; Artists Aid Soc.; Century Assoc.; SI; Lotos CIub; SC; AFA; MMA, 1917-30 (trustee).

Work: AIC; Springfield MFA

Comments: A classic realist, Jones was a skilled figurative and mural painter trained in the French academic tradition. Before studying in Paris, he spent a year (1876-77) at the artists colony at Pont-Aven, Brittany, with his brother, the landscape painter, Hugh Bolton Jones (see entry) and other Americans. After more than a decade in France, he returned to NYC where he taught at the NAD and earned a reputation for his murals.

Sources: WW31; 300 Years of American Art, vol. 1, 512; Falk, Exh. Record Series.