German-American painter and illustrator. Started his career as a concert pianist before becoming the art director of Knorr & Hirth, a Nazi publisher. Escaped Germany a day after the Nazis came into power in Paris and had to prove his loyalty to the Allied powers by serving in the British and French armies. Left for New York in 1941, restarting his career as an illustrator for Vogue, Fortune and Harper’s Bazaar. Paintings demonstrate a blend of expressionistic exaggeration, Surrealist fantasy, Cubist manipulations of form and perspective, and incorporates elements of his personal history, literary associations, and introspection that separates his works from pop-art. Known for his erotic renderings of human form, inspired in part by Berlin’s cabaret scene and in part by New York’s underground. Favorite subjects were bizarre women as sexual object, precocious children and men as strangers or voyeurs, and policemen as symbols of authority. Taught at the Pratt Institute from 1952 to 1965.