He studied at the Academy of Arts since 1903. In 1908 the title of the artist for the painting "Alien". Was a pensioner of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1909.(Kondakov)
In 1903 he graduated from the Moscow school of painting, sculpture and architecture, in 1908 — the St Petersburg Academy of art and was sent abroad (Italy, France, Germany), where he began working in films as artist; worked mainly for German film studios. With his participation made into films - "Branded" (1920, Director C. T. Dreyer, a film Studio "UFA"), etc. From 1925 in the USSR. The best works of the artist the movie "Ghost, which does not returns" (1930), "Twenty-six commissioners" (1933).