A pupil of Gyula Rudnay, István Csók and János Vaszary at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts between 1924 and 1926, he finished his studies with Ágoston Benkhard some ten years later. In 1931-1934 he was on scholarship to Rome, which left its imprint on his choice of religious subjects, in the precision of drawing and the richness in realistic detail. Yet his painting cannot be labelled realistic in that realism was only one component of his pictures based on a profound insight into human character. His interest in visionary ideals played just as great a role in his work as his flair for the grotesque, not to mention his vein of story-telling.
Especially in his later pictures where he let stories flow freely represented in a Baroque swirl of rampant motives. His enigmatic, fairy world pictures earned him great popularity towards the end of his life, though his most accomplished period was the 1930s.