Alfred Jonniaux was a Belgian painter who became American in 1946.

He was born in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, Belgium where he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts

Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts

The Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels is an art school, founded in 1711.The faculty and alumni of ARBA include some of the most famous names in Belgian painting, sculpture, and architecture: James Ensor, Rene Magritte, and Paul Delvaux...

. He painted the portraits of many officials and European royal family members. During the war, he fled to The United States during the Nazi occupation and became an American citizen in 1946. He kept paintings portraits of prominent figures including Justice Owens J. Roberts, Kenneth Royall or Franklin Delano Roosevelt whom portrait was hung until this last years in the Roosevelt Room

Roosevelt Room

The Roosevelt Room is a meeting room in the West Wing of the White House, the official home and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located almost in the center of the West Wing, and near the Oval Office the room is named for two related U.S. presidents, Theodore Roosevelt...

in the White House.