Between 1930 and 1933, he studied painting at the Federal School of Art and Design in Innsbruck, but was unable to survive solely as a painter during the Great Depression.

He also produced ski trail maps for European winter sports resorts, particularly in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and France.

[3] In 1977, he painted the topographic map of ocean floors by Marie Tharp and Bruce C. Heezen, continuing work he started at National Geographic.

Other distortions in his paintings include a visual opening up of the tightly packed canyons of North Cascades National Park.

He also emphasized lakes and other bodies of water, showing reflections of the mountains or glints of sunlight to attract the viewer's eye.

For example on his 1966 panorama of the Himalayas for National Geographic he observed the mountains extensively including flying around Mount Everest in a chartered plane.