Degner got acquainted with the latest trends in painting when he left Kȍnigsberg and set off to improve his professional skills first to Munich and then to Berlin. Here he absorbed the basic methods of impressionism and expressionism and soon became renowned and strongly sought-for artist. The trip to Paris that in early XX century was rightfully considered to be the global capital of contemporary art had an impact on Degner.

The triumph of Degner fell on the so called golden twenties – a short period of a relative welfare and stability in the history of Germany. In the history of German art it was marked by a mixture of realistic trends and avant-garde. During the period from 1919 through 1929 the portraits of Degner were exhibited in the galleries in Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt-on-Mein and other large cities.

In 1930, with the accession of national-socialists to power, the status of Degner severely shattered. His paintings didn’t correspond to the political interests and soon were declared as degenerative – thus fascists called the art of artists of avant-garde trends out of their favor.

At the beginning of the Second World War the artist taught drawing at the ordinary children’s school but soon he was prohibited to do it. He could completely return back to the creativity only after the war having become a professor of Berlin Academy of Arts.