Gerald Harvey Jones, a former industrial arts teacher who would go on to become one of America’s most highly regarded painters by creating masterpieces that hearkened back to simpler times when virtues such as faith, courage, patriotism, hard work, and compassion were revered, has died. He was 84.

“G. Harvey,” as he was known to his fans and collectors, was a friend of mine, as he was to many around Focus on the Family. A man of incredible generosity, Gerald began a tradition in 1987 of commissioning a yearly painting for the ministry, which we were then able to make available to our friends.

Over the years, G. Harvey paintings helped raise tens of millions of dollars, all of which enabled our organization to minister to hundreds of millions of families both here in the United States and all around the world.

Gerald is survived by his wife, Patty, to whom he was married for over 63 years, his two children, Gerald Jones Jr. (Karlene) and Pamela (Tim), as well as four grandchildren. It would be impossible to overstate the Jones family’s kindness to the ministry.

Several decades ago, Gerald suggested holding an auction for some of his paintings at the famed Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, with all the proceeds split between Focus and Young Life. He insisted on paying all of the related costs, including the frames for the prized paintings.

Born in 1933 in San Antonio, Gerald’s Texas upbringing helped form and fuel his future works of art, much of which centered on western landscapes, horses and cowboys.

Although he showed artistic promise as a young boy, Gerald originally pursued a career as a junior high school art teacher. It wasn’t until Patty, his newlywed wife, bought him four or five tubes of paint on his birthday that he decided to try and see if he had the chops to make a career of his passion.

“After dabbling for a while, I took some of my paintings to Dewey Bradford, a local arts dealer, who took me on a tutoring basis for three years,” Gerald once reflected. “He bought everything I painted and tutored me on various techniques.”

Acclaimed far and wide, the apex of Gerald’s career was his show, “The All-American Horse,” at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History which ran for one year, an extraordinary achievement almost unprecedented for a living artist.

- Jim Daly

This website is managed and advised by the G. Harvey Jones Family.