Born in Washington D.C. on October 3, 1956 to an American father and an Austrian mother, I was accompanied in the discovery of painting by a cosmopolitan family.

My father, an amateur painter, introduced me  to drawing and oil painting. Very quickly I practiced copying  some works of great masters that I saw in the many art galleries of my home town.

From the age of 13, artists in Washington, like Miriam Hapgood DeWitt occasionally guided my personal research in their studios.