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Jonas Lie was born in Moss, Norway in 1880 to a Norwegian father and an American mother. Lie’s father died when he was 12. After a year of studying in Paris, Lie joined his mother and sisters in New York City. Lie went on to become one of America’s most recognized landscape painters. He is best known for his seascapes. His works have been exhibited widely across the United States and throughout the world. Lie died in 1940.

In early 1913, Lie spent three months at the Panama Canal as construction was nearing an end. He painted a series of oil paintings that portrayed aspects of the canal’s excavation and construction. In December 1913, he had a solo exhibition “Paintings of the Panama Canal by Jonas Lie” held at M. Knoedler & Co., New York. Purchases were made by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Detroit Museum of Art. In February 1914, 20 paintings from the Panama Canal series were featured in the annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Some attribute Lie’s notoriety to the Panama oil paintings.