Jonathan Tupper Morey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 26, 1916. 

As a child, he made frequent trips to Europe with his family, viewing the world’s greatest works of art and developing a reading knowledge of French, German and Italian. His father, Charles Rufus Morey, was Chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, Acting Director of the American University of Rome, and co-founder of the College Art Association. Morey attended The Lawrenceville School, a prestigious boarding school in New Jersey, before enrolling in Princeton University, where he completed an A.B. in Art History (1938) and a M.F.A. in Architecture (1942).

 

Morey enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in September 1942. He served with the Topographic Battalion of 30th Engineers before being recommended for service with the MFAA by his father, who was by this time Vice Chairman of the Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies. Jonathan Morey joined the MFAA in August 1945 as the Fine Arts Specialist Officer in charge of the Regierungsbezirk Oberbayern Section of the Office of Military Government for Bavaria (an administrative district which included Munich). Morey conducted inspections of dozens of art repositories in the area, many of which contained the collections of German museums removed for safekeeping at the beginning of the war. In December 1945 he coordinated the removal to the Munich Central Collecting Point of almost 10,000 paintings belonging to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich which had been scattered throughout seven different repositories. This staggering number included almost 1,400 privately owned paintings which had been entrusted to the museum for safekeeping by prominent German collectors. Morey remained involved with MFAA operations in Germany until March 1946, when he was redeployed.

 

Following his return to the United States, Morey worked as a professional architect in Vermont. He died in Greensboro, Vermont on July 8, 1995.