Francis Coates Jones Biography | Oil Painting

Francis Coates Jones demonstrated no enthusiasm for art until he went abroad in 1876 when he was nineteen years old, with his older brother Hugh Bolton Jones, who was a landscape painter.

They first went to England, then to the artists’ colony at Pont-Aven, in the French province of Brittany, where there were many American artists. Here, Francis Coates Jones taught himself to draw during his year-long stay. He then moved to Paris and enrolled at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1877. In 1878 the two brothers briefly went to Spain and Morocco. Returning to Paris, Jones enrolled in the Académie Julian and studied with William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. Except for a six-month trip home to Baltimore, Jones remained in Europe for five years, studying and traveling, making sketches in Italy and Switzerland.

After his arrival back to America in 1881, Francis Coates Jones worked for a year in his brother’s art studio in New York and was elected a member of the progressive Society of American Artists. After another visit to France, he finally settled in New York in 1884.

In the 1890s, Francis Coates Jones did magazine illustrations and mural painting and taught at the National Academy of Design, and was elected a full member in 1894, he taught at the Academy for over thirty years In the 1890s, Jones took up the medium of pastel, which was enjoying a revival among artists. His early works always had objects and costumes from classical antiquity, he later dropped historical allusions altogether, focusing on the female model engaged in domestic tasks or at leisure. Jones’s mature work shows the influence of Impressionism in its use of distinct strokes of bright color.

A traditionalist, Jones was particularly active in service to the National Academy. Also, Jones was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for many years.

Art Movement: Academic.
Artists Influencing Francis Coates Jones: Henri Lehmann, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jules Joseph Lefebvre.
He Traveled To England, France, Spain, Morocco, Italy, Switzerland.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.