[3] Shortly after his birth, the family moved back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they lived in the German district with his grandparents.

[4] The Holty family then moved to the countryside near Green Bay where his father practiced medicine, before returning to Milwaukee around 1906.

[3][5] That summer he enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually attending classes at the Parsons School of Design.

[4] In 1926, while living in Munich, Holty originally planned to attend the Royal Academy,[3] only to train under Hans Hofmann.

"- Carl Holty on Hans Hofmann's influence[7]From 1930 to 1935 he lived in Paris, exhibiting his work to good reception.

[7] Upon returning to the United States, he found artist representation in New York City and became involved, once again, with Hans Hofmann and Vaclav Vytlacil as well as Stuart Davis, whom he had known in Paris.

He continued to explore shapes and form, and by the 1960s contours had disappeared from his work, being replaced with subtle toned-down colors.

[4] On his role as a Wisconsin artist, Andrew Stevens stated in 1995 that "Holty's zeal for non-objective art was more closely identified with the younger group of American painters in the East.

His artworks including his prints are among the first by a Wisconsin artist to come to grips with the tide of abstract art that spread from Europe to America at the beginning of the 20th century.