Trained at the art academy in The Hague under Andreas Schelfhout, in 1846 he moved to Montparnasse in Paris, France where he studied under Eugène Isabey and François-Édouard Picot.

[1] Back in Paris, in 1861 he rented a studio on the rue de Chevreuse in Montparnasse where some of his paintings began to show glimpses of the Impressionist style to come.

In 1862 he met in Normandy, in the famous ferme Saint-Siméon in Honfleur, with some of his artist friends, such as Alfred Sisley, Eugène Boudin, and the young Claude Monet, to all of whom Jongkind served as a mentor.

[3] In 1878, Jongkind and his companion Joséphine Fesser moved to live in the small town of La Côte-Saint-André near Grenoble in the Isère département in the southeast of France.

[4] On 2 June 2019, a statue of Jongkind made by Dutch sculptor Rob Houdijk was unveiled in the Duifpolder between Maassluis and Vlaardingen alongside the Vlaardingertrekvaart canal, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth.