From 1904 to 1907, he completed an apprenticeship in decorative painting. He then studied with
Fritz Schider at the (Arts and Crafts School) in Basel for one year. This was followed by a study trip to Rome with
August Babberger. Upon his return, he studied at the
Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. He then moved to the mountain village of Rührberg, near
Grenzach, where he created drypoint etchings. In 1909, he married Anny Rickenbach, daughter of a gunsmith from
Muttenz. Shortly after, he went to
Karlsruhe to study with
Hans Thoma and improve his etching techniques. After the birth of his son Fritzli in 1910, the family lived in Erlenhof (
Thürnen) but spent the winters in Paris working at
La Ruche, an artists' residence. After a stay there in 1912, he began to focus almost exclusively on woodcuts. For a time, he was obsessed with creating portraits of his son. In 1913, they moved to Berlin, where he became a member of
Der Sturm, an artists' group associated with the journal of the same name. Anny died in May 1914. To suppress his grief, he volunteered for military service and was assigned as a
Gefreiter to a
Pionier-Kompanie in
Ticino. It was there he met his second wife, Emma Ziswyler. He continued to exhibit his woodcuts, while in service, with the help of
Herwarth Walden. Back in Basel, after the war, he became a teacher; at the Gewerbeschule and the Frauenarbeitsschule, a similar organization for women. He was also a cofounder of the artists' group
Das Neue Leben, and wrote the group's manifesto: In the mid 1920s, he began to suffer from recurring bouts of depression and developed doubts about his artistic abilities. At some point, he took most of his important works from 1916 to 1920 and threw them in the
Rhine. After 1928, he ceased exhibiting and focused almost entirely on teaching. He committed suicide in 1942. ==Selected works==