With the help of a stipend of the city of Osnabrück, he was able to study from 1929 for about two years at the Kunsthochschule Kassel under professor Curt Witte (1882–1959), its director from 1925 to 1932.
Coming himself from a mechanics' background his paintings of the steel mill stand out at that time, and were compared in a 1989 exhibition with Adolph Menzel.
His artwork thrived in a milieu where an oil painting belonged to the pre-requisites of a German middle class home.
After WWII and the destruction of large swaths of Osnabrück and other German cities, he re-gained popularity among his customers in the 1950s.
They cherished the timelessness and his historical views of Osnabrück and other sites, depicting a peaceful pre-war era gone forever.
When tastes in art and middle class life style changed in the 1960s and 1970s, his traditional customer base vanished and he became almost forgotten.