Born at Munchengladbach in the Rhineland of Germany, Franz was the eldest of seven children. His father was an industrialist and thought that Franz would succeed him, but art was his major interest.

He first exhibited in a Swiss exhibition in 1886, demonstrating the talent necessary to make a success of art. He studied at the School of Art, Dusseldorf, and in 1899 came to Cornwall to study, first at the FORBES SCHOOL and later with Julius OLSSON. In 1905 he taught painting in Penzance.

By 1914 he was interned as a prisoner of war and due to ill health was repatriated to Germany. There he was commissioned on a number of occasions by the Kaiser to produce monumental works of art. After the war he settled in Switzerland and continued regular visits to Cornwall; he left St Ives during the Munich crisis of 1938 (Whybrow). He died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1946.