1899 - 1906 study at the private school of Heinrich Knirr and afterwards at the Kunstakademie München with Franz von Stuck. 1912 participation in the second exhibition of the Blaue Reiter in Munich and travel to Paris, where he meets Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, among others. 1913 exhibition of his works in Herwarth Walden's Galerie Der Sturm and in the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin. 1914 travel to Tunis and Kairouan together with August Macke and Louis Moilliet; and co-founder of the Neue Münchener Sezession.
1916 - 1918 military service. 1919 contract with the Munich gallery owner Hans Goltz, member of the Rat bildender Künstler München and in the Aktionsausschuss Revolutionärer Künstler in Munich.

1920 appointment to the Bauhaus in Weimar by Walter Gropius, 1921 head of the bookbinder's workshop, 1922 head of the metal workshop, 1922/23 - 1925 head of the glass painting workshop and 1921 - 1924/1925 teacher for elementary design theory in the preliminary course. 1924 co-founder of the group "Die Blauen Vier" together with the artists Alexej Jawlensky, Wassily Kandinsky and Lyonel Feininger. 1925 - 1930 teacher at the Bauhaus in Dessau for his elementary design theory for the preliminary course, 1926/1927 - 1930 leader of the course in free plastic and painterly design, from 1927 leader of the free workshop of painting or rather the free painting class and 1927 - 1929/1930 teacher in design theory in the weaving mill.

1927 participation in the department "Deutsche Kunst der Gegenwart" at the "Jubiläums Kunstausstellung Kassel 1927 - 150 Jahre Kasseler Kunstakademie". 1929 participation in the "Vierte große Kunstausstellung Kassel 1929 - Neue Kunst in der Orangerie" at the invitation of Arnold Bode. 1931 - 1933 professor at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie. 1933 dismissed by the National Socialists, return to Switzerland.

Participation in the first documenta, documenta 2 and documenta 3.