 He received his Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt in 1931 in Islamic history and art history.From 1929 to 1931, he worked on the Islamic collection of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin under the direction of Ernst Kühnel and the collector/archaeologist Friedrich Sarre.In 1934, due to the rise of the Nazis, he immigrated first to Great Britain and then to the United States, where he joined the staff of Arthur Upham Pope at the Institute of Persian Art and Archaeology in New York.