Jaques was born September 28, 1887 in Geneseo, Illinois. Family moved to Elmo near Topeka in 1899 and it was there that Jaques first became conscious of the variety and migration of birds. The family also lived near Durham before, in 1903, moving to northern Minnesota. Began working in a taxidermy shop then, in 1913, worked for the railroad. Served in World War I then
studied art with Clarence Rosenkranz. During the early 1920s, Jacques secured a position as an illustrator and in 1924 was hired as a staff artist by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His assignment was to produce large dioramas and background paintings for exhibits and to accompany museum expeditions. Jacques retired fr

SOURCES:
Susan Craig, "Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945)"
AskART, www.askart.com, accessed Oct. 19, 2007; Jaques, Florence Page. Francis Lee Jaques: Artist of the Wilderness World (Garden City: Doubleday, 1973); Luce, Don T. Francis Lee Jaques, Artist-Naturalist (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982).

This and over 1,750 other biographies can be found in Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945) compiled by Susan V. Craig, Art & Architecture Librarian at University of Kansas....