After serving on the anthropology staff of the Milwaukee Public Museum (1938–1942) and as director of the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts (1943–1944), he returned to Layton as an instructor in 1947.

[1] He was one of the few Wisconsin artists of his generation to escape the regionalist label and win showings in prestigious galleries, like those in New York City.

His paintings of exotic animals can be attributed to his numerous trips to the Milwaukee County Zoo.

[citation needed] He first became interested in African-American culture when, as an art student in Chicago, he taught a class in a settlement house largely attended by African Americans.

He was a longtime friend of such jazz greats as Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey and Dizzy Gillespie and of painters Gertrude Abercrombie and John Wilde.