| 1891 | born in Berlin | |
| 1907 | studies with Emil Orlik at the training institute of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts | |
| 1913 | changes to the genre painter and portraitist Hugo Freiherr von Habermann at the Academy in Munich | |
| 1914 | attends the private Academy Ranson in Paris, becomes a student of Felix Vallotton there | |
| 1914 - 1918 | during the First World War he served as a battery commander and airman | |
| 1918 | returns to Berlin and rents studio to continue work | |
| 1925 | takes part in the group exhibition "Berliner Secession" and exhibits drawings at the Berlin Academy | |
| 1926 - 1930 | lives in Provence and travels extensively | |
| 1932 | moves to Paris, where he creates his first exclusively abstract works and collages | |
| 1934 - 1939 | lives in Greece and exhibits twice in Athens | |
| 1939 | return to Germany, beginning of his friendship with Werner Gilles, Günther Franke, Fritz Winter and E. W. Nay | |
| 1940 | is banned from painting, moves to Pöcking near Munich | |
| since | begins publications on art including: Essay "On Art Education," "Degenerate Art," "On Abstract Art" (both in 1947), "Turn to Non-Objectivity" in 1953, and "Ornament or Emblem?" 1955 | |
| since 1950 | beginning of his non-figurative work phase; his first purely abstract exhibition is presented at the Art Association in Munich in 1952 | |
| 1961 | Guest of honor at Villa Massimo in Rome | |
| 1962 | Guest of honor at the Villa Romana in Florence | |
| since 1963 | makes long trips especially to Greece | |
| 23.07.1976 | dies in Wetzhausen in Lower Franconia |