Joseph Henry Lonas was born in Manassas, Virginia in 1925 and began his artistic education at the age of 14 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Immediately after graduating high school in 1943, Lonas joined the Army and was assigned as a gunner to the 987th Field Artillery Battalion, with which he served in Normandy, the Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe.