After working for a year with a firm of architects, he was granted a six-month leave-of-absence for an educational tour of Europe. He departed in mid-June 1910 for his only trip abroad. He made his way across England to France, south through Germany, across Switzerland to Italy, back north for a second stay in Paris, and around northern Germany before embarking from Bremerhaven in late-November. In Sienna, he met and exchanged ideas on painting with John Singer Sargent. During his return visit to Paris he attended a Saturday evening soirée at the apartment of Gertrude Stein and he saw paintings by Paul Cézanne in the gallery of Ambroise Vollard.