 Born in Giurgiu, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bucharest between 1902 and 1906, in the class of George Demetrescu Mirea.After graduation, he was awarded a scholarship to the Académie Julian in Paris (which, as an admirer of its former students Nicolae Grigorescu and Ştefan Luchian, he had wanted to attend).He studied under Jean-Paul Laurens and a year later, in 1907 at the École des Beaux-Arts under Luc-Olivier Merson.