In 1886, Halmi moved to Munich, and in 1887 his schoolroom painting "After the Examination" achieved the Munkacsy Prize, winning six thousand francs and a scholarship to Paris.

Halmi went to study with Munkacsy and continued painting successful works, including one purchased for the collection of Franz Joseph I of Austria.

On his return to Budapest in 1894, he began taking commissions, spending a year at the Esterházy castle painting portraits of the other artists, musicians and men of letters who gathered there.

Eventually tiring of the hectic life of the court, he relocated to Munich and worked for two years for Jugend magazine, until he took the commission to create illustrations for the golden jubilee memorial volume for Franz Joseph.

[5] In the late 1880s, before Halmi had secured his reputation, traveling American Cornelius Hoagland Tangeman came upon some of his work on display in Munich and sought him out for private lessons.

At the same time, as occasionally happens, when I paint artificial complexions and Paris gowns, and discreetly overlook double chins, and draw figures mostly in imaginary lines, I am thinking of my sitter rather than of myself and of my art.

The excuse I then make to my conscience is that, in portraying a lady reputed beautiful, it is not my business to paint her just as I happen to see her at the moment, but rather to try to express and visualize the abiding charm of her personality at its best.