He became a Parisian painter when he studied under Lucien Simon at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, through his adventures in the "zone",[1] setting up several studios before finally settling in the Île Saint-Louis at 15 quai d'Anjou.
He was also a Provençal painter since he spent time in Provence following in the steps of Cézanne and Van Gogh in the 1930s and set up his last studio in Aurel, Vaucluse.
He can also be considered a painter from Normandy where he was drawn by his friends Jean Jardin and Edmond Duchesne and where he bought a house for his family in 1936.
His paternal grandparents who had been wine growers near Colmar in the Haut-Rhin decided to leave Alsace in 1871 to remain French and had settled in Bar-le-Duc where his father was a bailiff.
"[4] His talent came to the attention of his friend the future engraver Paul Lemagny and was encouraged by his philosophy teacher, Pierre Salzi, who introduced him to the painter Jules-Emile Zingg.
With the financial help of the alumni association of the lycée in Bar-le-Duc (200F) and the town (800F) as well as a loan on trust from the Meuse department, Jean Driesbach left Lorraine for Paris.
During the holidays at home in Bar-le-Duc Jean Dries painted the countryside (Les bords de l'Ornain, La forêt de Massonges), tried his hand at portraits (his two sisters) and also his first large scale compositions: Trois nus dans un paysage (1927), and Le déjeuner en forêt (1928) "Painting has never given me so much pleasure" he wrote.
[13] Finally in 1930 with another close friend, Alexandre Marc-Lipianski, he visited Spain: its landscapes and of course its museums, "What emotion Velasquez and Goya inspire".
These submissions drew the attention of the critics[15] who devoted long articles to his work: in November 1932 Thiébault-Sisson wrote in Le Temps "Dries is a born painter and I know of few talents as promising as his.
Recognized by critics, appreciated by private and public collectors, in 1936 Dries was acknowledged by his peers when he met the painter Vlaminck who asked to see some of his work and ended the visit with these words "The carp's not bad.
He had been drawn there by his friends Jean Jardin and Edmond Duchesne, but for someone who was in love with the South of France the first contact was difficult, “Everything seemed lackluster and listless...
It would take me years to get over this distaste, to become aware of the delicacy of the landscapes of northwestern France, the cradle of impressionism.”[18] He continued to travel in late 1935 to take up a teaching position at the colonial school in Sétif Algeria.
[19] He was more inspired by the trips he made to Italy and Switzerland (1932) and to Spain where he spent two weeks in Cadaquès, “I sometimes met the painter Salvador Dali.
It was in December 1938 as a grant holder at the Abbaye de Royaumont near Paris that he met “Mlle Rosset, an excellent musician”[21] who became his wife on November 11, 1939, and was thereafter his favorite model.
As his state of health precluded his being mobilised, he was at first posted as an art teacher to the Parisian Lycée Carnot which had been sent to Normandy for safety reasons.
The French government then sent him to Argentina to Mendoza where at Cuyo University he organized painting classes and his wife taught music.
In Argentina and Chile Dries found new landscapes to paint, interested students and new friends, the engraver Victor Delhez and the opera singer Jane Bathori, but was overwhelmed by sadness and worry for his family back in France.
In spite of the offer of a five-year contract and the success of his exhibition in Buenos Aires presented by Margarita Abella Caprile, the Dries decided to return to France.
On the way back the Portuguese Minister of Propaganda invited them to stop in Lisbon where Dries exhibited a few paintings, “unexpectedly successful, ...enthusiastic press coverage, lots of buyers”[23] before reaching Paris in the spring of 1942.
He received many orders for paintings: two for the Chamber of Commerce in Caen in 1948, the Cité Universitaire in Paris (Victor Lyon Foundation) in 1950, the Middle School[26] and the Chamber of Commerce of Honfleur in 1958, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique for the ore carrier Lens in 1959 and most importantly for the Flandres suite on the liner France in 1961.
He was attracted there by his love for Mediterranean landscapes and by his friend, the painter Pierre Ambrogiani, whose work was exhibited in the same Parisian art gallery as Dries.
Charmed by the village and the surroundings which reminded him of Sétif, he returned there every summer to soak up the atmosphere of the solidly structured landscapes dear to Cézanne and the vibrant colours associated with fauvism.
He left unfinished his final work, Montagne de la Sainte-Victoire, an ultimate tribute to Cézanne, the master of Aix.
"[37] Dries tried his hand at landscapes (of Normandy and elsewhere), nudes, still lives, portraits, seascapes, horse races, and large-scale compositions.
In 1956 he estimated that he had “done about 1100 paintings including 300 or so which had been destroyed by the artist.”[40] Even once he reached maturity Dries never stopped exploring new paths, "What's important to me is the structure of the composition.
Lastly memories of his childhood in Lorraine and outings in the forests of the Meuse influenced his palette giving it "pure tones dominated by blues and greens.
"[8] A history of the works by Dries is possible, based on his all-too-rare writings on the subject, but also difficult as he seldom hesitated to rework old paintings according to his current experiments and state of mind.
This attention to light, reinforced by his first difficult contact with Honfleur and by his desire to hold on to what he thought defined French art, especially after the defeat of 1940, drove him to experiment briefly with impressionism.
"[48] where sometimes, in his use of pure solid colours, in the red or black outlines, the artist was without doubt inspired by his memories of time spent working in the workshop of the master glassmaker Gambut.
As the art critic, Robert Vrinat said "the solid but not rigid composition shows Dries to be a disciple of Cézannian thinking which he went back to with gusto as had Friesz and Vlaminck.