1903 - 1905 apprenticeship as an arts and crafts draughtsman in a Stuttgart inlay workshop. 1906 - 1910 study, initially one semester at the Stuttgarter Kunstgewerbeschule, then with a scholarship change to the Akademie der bildenden Künste Stuttgart. 1911/1912 freelance painter in Berlin, during this time contact to Herwarth Walden's gallery Der Sturm. 1912 return to Stuttgart, there master pupil of Adolf Hölzel. 1913/1914 opening and management of the Neue Kunstsalon am Neckartor.

1914 - 1918 military service in the First World War. 1920 first figurines for the "Triadische Ballett", premiere in Stuttgart in 1922.

1921 appointment by Walter Gropius to the Bauhaus in Weimar, where he initially headed the mural painting department (alternating with Johannes Itten), and teacher of nude drawing. 1922 - 1923 head of stone sculpture, wood sculpture and, temporarily, metal workshop. 1923 - 1929 head of the stage workshop at Bauhaus in Weimar and then at Bauhaus in Dessau. 1927/1928 teacher for figure drawing and from 1928 holding his course "Der Mensch". 1928/1929 tour of the Bauhaus stage in Germany, led by him. 1929 invitation by Arnold Bode to participate in the "Vierte große Kunstausstellung Kassel 1929 - Neue Kunst in der Orangerie" in Kassel.

1929 - 1932 professor at the Staatliche Akademie für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in Breslau, among other things there, head of the stage art class. June 1932 professor at the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in Berlin.

1933 - 1934 after immediate termination of his employment, stay in Switzerland, his art is ostracized in Germany as "degenerate". 1938 work for a Stuttgart painter's shop. 1939/40 commissions for camouflage paintings of barracks. 1940 establishment of a laboratory for lacquer experiments for the Wuppertaler Lackfabrik Dr. Herberts, at which other artist colleagues such as Willi Baumeister, Gerhard Marcks and Georg Muche also work. Participation at the first documenta, documenta 2 and documenta 3.