Born in 1880 and awarded the Prix de Rome in 1905, Jonas was appointed the official painter of the French Navy in 1916, and was already an accom­plished artist when the Banque de France asked him to design its notes in 1933.

By that time he had pro­duced a pro­lific and diverse body of work. His early com­pos­i­tions were very real­istic depic­tions of working life, notably of the mines in northern France where he was born. He also painted a number of por­traits, both official (for example, General Per­shing in 1917 ’ cur­rently in the Met­ro­politan Museum of New York ’ and Marshal Foch) and private, along with major murals in the north of France (the ceiling of the Chamber of Com­merce, the town hall in Valen­ciennes, for example) and in Paris (the Maison des Centraux building). Jonas’s work also included illus­tra­tions for major lit­erary works and paintings of intimate scenes such as land­scapes. In 1933, at the age of 53, Lucien Jonas was recog­nized as a highly tal­ented artist.

In that year, the Banque de France decided to drop the alleg­orical themes that until then had illus­trated its bank­notes, and reduce them in size. It asked Lucien Jonas to produce sketches, and the artist went on to design France’s bank­notes for the last six years of the Third Republic, from the Occu­pation to the first months of Charles de Gaulle’s pro­vi­sional gov­ernment. His talents as a por­trait painter can clearly be seen in the notes depicting famous men from France’s history

While working for the Banque de France, Lucien Jonas con­tinued to paint until his death in 1947, notably pro­ducing mil­itary por­traits. In1944, he painted General Koenig, de Larminat and de Lattre de Tassigny (the first two por­traits are in the MusŽ e de l’ordre de la LibŽ ration).