Jean was drafted shortly after this first exposition. This did not stop him from painting and drawing the flowers, horses, and landscapes he discovered in places like Val-d’Ajol, in the Vosges region, where he was given medical treatment upon returning from the war.

Successive expositions in Paris (Salon d’Automne at the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées in 1920, 1923, 1924, 1927, and 1932, Galerie Bing in 1929) and New York (Balzac Galleries in 1930, Perls Galleries in 1938) put Jean in the public eye for the first time.

Two events in the postwar Parisian cultural scene decisively affected the artist’s career: the comedy Le Bœuf sur le toit, in 1920, which gave him the chance to meet the great French musicians of the era (Darius Millaud, Georges Auric, Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger); and La Revue Nègre, in 1925, which crystallized the marriage of color and music in his paintings that would lead to exceptional works of art. Jean’s interest in music inspired many depictions of pianists and orchestras, awash with analogous color schemes. Heads of musicians are drawn like whole notes on a staff, organ pipes are aligned like eighth notes, and harps are placed to evoke quarter rests.

During the same period, Jean also paid homage to the Fratellini brothers in paintings of circuses and clowns that teem with the music and language of color, plays of light, and a penchant for the liberal use of white, usually for clowns, horses, and athletes.

ell-known painter with frequent expositions in Paris (Galerie Barreiro, Galerie Jos. Hessel, Galerie Drouant-David, etc. ) and the United States (the Georges de Braux Gallery in Philadelphia, James Vigeveno Galleries in Westwood Hills, and Hammer Galleries and the Chase Gallery in New York), with works displayed in the collections of the most prestigious American museums (the Art Institute in Chicago, the MoMA in New York, etc. ),