He taught himself drawing, then was admitted to the antique class of Henri Lehmann at the École des Beaux-Arts.

[4] Jones continued to study in France until 1881 apart from a trip to Baltimore in the summer of 1879 and a period in the winter of 1879–80 when he painted a military panorama in London.

[2] Jones finally moved back to the United States and settled in New York City in 1884, where his work as a figure painter was quickly recognized.

[4] By the 1890s Jones had a solid reputation and began to take a leading role in the art world of New York.

[3] Around 1907 Jones, his brother and their invalid sister Louise moved into an expensively furnished studio and home at 33 West Sixty-seventh Street in Manhattan.

[2] In his early work Jones depicted genre scenes in richly decorated interiors.

[4] These more loosely executed works after 1910 often showed women at ease in outdoor as well as indoor settings.

[5] At the 1885 annual show of the National Academy of Design Jones's picture Exchanging Confidences won the Thomas B. Clarke Prize for best figure composition.