Jean Pons was born in Paris in 1913. He attended the École Estienne in Paris, an academy giving a broad education but specialising in art and printmaking.
Jean Pons founded a hugely regarded lithography studio and workshop in 1938 which was attended by many contemporary Parisien artists such as Nicholas de Staël, Sonia Delaunay, Wassily Kandinsky, Serge Poliakoff, Ossip Zadkine and many others over several decades. The activity at the workshop was very intense but Jean Pons continued painting throughout. Initially still life, landscapes and portraits but by the end of the 1940's he embraced abstraction as his inspiration for both his paintings and prints.
He exhibited in group exhibitions throughout his life - Salon des Indépendants, Salon de Mai, Salon des Tuileries and Salon d'Automne. He became associated with a group of artists known as the 'Nouvelle École de Paris ' who as a group established the Salon d' Octobre. Pons also had many solo exhibitions, the first in 1952 at the Suzanne Michel Galerie in Paris and subsequently at La Hune Galerie, Colette Allende Galerie and the Iris Clerc Galerie - all in Paris. He also exhibited at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville Paris in 1984.
By the 1970's Jean Pons had left Paris to live in Provence, leaving his daughter Babette in charge of the thriving lithography studio, and devoted his career entirely to painting. This was a very productive period working in a variety of techniques and mediums.
Jean Pons said "Art, like happiness is a risk" and "I walk with my paintings".
Jean Pons died in 2005. A large retrospective exhibition showing some 80 paintings dating from 1940's - 2000's and gathered together from private collections, was held in 2018 at the Musée de St. Roch in Issoudun, France.