Alfred Jonniaux Explained

Alfred Jonniaux
Birth Date:1882
Birth Place:Brussels, Belgium
Death Date:1974
Nationality:Belgian
Occupation:Portrait Painter
Known For:Paintings of Justice Owens J. Roberts, Kenneth Royall and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Alfred Jonniaux (22 November 18821974) was a Belgian portrait painter who worked in London and the United States of America.

Career

He was born in Brussels, Belgium, where he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. He worked in Paris and established a successful career as a portraitist in London, with a studio in Yeoman's Row, Chelsea. He painted the portraits of society figures, and members of the European aristocracy and royal families. Portraits of the Mander family are in the collection at Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire.

Following the Nazi occupation of Belgium during World War II, he fled to The United States of America, and became an American citizen in 1946. During his first ten years in America, he established studios in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. His exhibitions led to many portrait commissions from leading figures in all spheres of American life. Among the prominent figures he painted were Justice Owens J. Roberts, Kenneth Royall and Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose portrait was hung until recent years in the Roosevelt Room in the White House.[1]

His papers are held at the Smithsonian Institution.[2]

Notes and References

  1. Book: Fortier, Alison. A History Lover's Guide to Washington, DC: Designed for Democracy. 2014. Arcadia Publishing. 978-1-62585-064-5. 32.
  2. Web site: Alfred Jonniaux papers, 1893–1969 . Smithsonian Institution . 25 August 2020 .