As a teenager, he worked in a print shop where he hand-colored glass lantern slides. He also took art classes with Ernst Büchner and Eugen Ammann. Though his parents did not initially support his desire to be an artist, they eventually relented and he began studying at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Geneva in 1919. There, he became friends with Pierre Courthion and Alberto Giacometti. In 1920, however, he returned to Basel to work in his parents' furniture shop after his father fell ill. In 1927, he again left Basel, this time to attend the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence.
