1913 – 1918 study law in Budapest. 1914 - 1917 military service and stay at a military hospital. 1917 study at evening courses in nude drawing at the free art school in Szeged, Hungary. 1919 move to Vienna, then 1920 to Berlin, there contact to Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch and to Herwarth Walden's Galerie Der Sturm, where 1922 his first solo exhibition takes place.

1923 appointment by Walter Gropius to the Bauhaus in Weimar, there 1923 - 1925 leader of the preliminary course and leader of the metal workshop. 1925 - 1928 head of the preliminary course and the metal workshop at the Bauhaus in Dessau. 1928 foundation of his own studio for typography and exhibition design, photomontages and collages in Berlin, where he designed stage sets for the Krolloper and the Piscator Bühne (1929), publication of the books "Malerei, Photographie, Film" (1925) and "Von Material zu Architektur" (1929), and presentation of the Licht-Raum-Modulator developed since 1922, in Paris (1930). 1934 emigration to Amsterdam because of his prohibition to work.

1935 - 1937 move to London, there work as a graphic designer. 1937 head of the planned design school New Bauhaus - American School of Design in Chicago, through the initiative by Walter Gropius. 1939 foundation and management of the School of Design in Chicago (since 1944 Institute of Design) as the successor institution of the New Bauhaus.