[1] After spending his youth in Molsheim in Alsace, Jean Jacoby studied art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg.

He was then a teacher of drawing from 1912 to 1918 at the Lewin-Funcke school in Berlin, then worked in Wiesbaden, before taking over the art department of a printing firm in Strasbourg.

He became internationally known when in 1923 he won the French Concours de l'Auto with his drawing Hurdle runner, beating 4,000 other entrants.

Jacoby often depicted sports in his works, also designing Luxembourg postage stamps for the 1952 Summer Olympics.

[3] From 1926 to 1934 he worked as an illustrator and artistic director for two newspapers of the Ullstein-Verlag, the Berliner Illustrierte and the Grüne Post.