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Artist and restorer, son of a cigar merchant, who was educated at St Paul’s School and St John’s Wood Art School, where he started a lifelong friendship with the painter John Armstrong (Jonas’ portrait of Armstrong is in the National Portrait Gallery). To avoid an ostentatious life-style Jonas left home and set up as a painter, notably of portraits, with some landscapes and religious pictures. He had a number of patrons, and his subjects included his friend the writer John Davenport, film actress Elsa Lanchester, cricketer Percy Fender and Lady Iris Mountbatten. Jonas acted for the silent screen, playing The Boy in Love, Life and Laughter, with Betty Balfour, 1923, and working as art director on Reveille, 1924, both directed by George Pearson.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)


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