After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts, he worked for a year at the Szolnok artists' colony in 1913 under the guidance of Adolf Fényes. He spent the summers of 1921 and 1923 in Nagybánya, and from 1928 to 1930 he was a fellow of the Hungarian Academy in Rome. His painting, based on keen observation of reality and built from powerful forms, received new impetus from the neoclassical spirit of the Italian Novecento. He switched to tempera painting and, as a leading figure of the so-called Roman School, painted murals on historical and religious themes. While his frescoes demonstrate his sense of monumentality and ability to stylize, his easel paintings depicting everyday life, in addition to their vivid capture of characters, sometimes also reveal a tendency to caricature. His choice of themes was influenced both by his interest in scenes of rural crowds and the nascent folklore of urban mondain life with jazz bands, circus scenes, and barmaids. He evoked his experiences with the strong contrasts of pure colors and the forms created from blocks and sharp edges. From 1939 he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1940 he won the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale.