Jonas Lie, landscape and marine painter, first studied briefly in Paris. In 1893 he came to New York with his family and attended the Ethical Culture School, Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design and later the Art Students League. He moved, with his family, to Plainfield, NJ at the turn of the century where he worked as a designer of cotton fabric patterns. He was a member of the Country Sketch Group, organized by Van Dearing Perrine, and exhibited in their 1901 show at the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1906 Lie visited Norway and Paris and upon his return he made painting trips to the Adirondacks and the New England Coast. He was active in the mounting of the Armory Show in 1913. That same year he visited the Panama Canal and did a series of 15 paintings depicting the struggles of the construction of the Canal. Later he visited and painted the copper mines in Utah.
In 1919, in response to the jury on membership rejecting 14 proposed members to the National Academy, Lie organized the (Society of) American Painters, Sculptors and Gravers. Macbeth Gallery handled his work for many years.
Lie served as the most liberal president of the National Academy (1934-39). Under his presidency artists such as Reginald Marsh, Randall Davey, Charles Prendergast, Paul Sample, Robert Phillip, Ross Moffett, Maurice Sterne and John Steuart Curry were admitted.
Lie's first marriage was to Charlotte Egede Nissen who he divorced in 1916. That same year he married Anga Sontum, who died in 1927.
