Flower, figure, and mural painter Francis C. Jones attended a Quaker school in Baltimore until age 14. Although he had little previous interest in art, he left for Paris five years later with his older brother, Hugh Bolton Jones, who was studying to be a painter. The two were guests of Edwin A. Abbey in London before moving on to spend a year at Pont-Aven. In the fall of 1877, Jones went to Paris where he studied drawing on his own until he won a place in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts antique class of Henri Lehmann. The following year, he traveled to Spain and Morocco with his brother and met his parents and sister for a tour of Europe. After returning to Paris, he enrolled at the Acad‚mie Julian. Aside from a summer 1879 trip to Baltimore and a winter 1879-80 stint as a panorama painter in London, he remained a student in France until 1881. Returning to New York to share a Sherwood Building studio with his brother, Jones was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1882. After one more trip to Paris, he finally settled in New York.
Although the Jones family wealth provided for his needs, the young artist nevertheless obtained illustration commissions from Scribner's and Century magazines. He also secured work teaching a portrait class at the Art Students League. In later years, he served over three decades as an instructor in the National Academy schools. By the 1890s, Jones was in the ranks of established American painters; the National Academy had honored him in 1885 with the Clarke Prize, and in 1913 he received the Isidor Medal. He served as a general member of the Council for four years and as NAD Treasurer from 1907 to 1929. About the time he was elected to that office, he and his brother moved into a lavish studio residence at 33 W. 67th St. which they shared with their invalid sister. It became a showplace of rich decorative handiwork. In 1929, Jones suffered acute paralysis following a stroke. He died after several years of illness.
