He left Europe in 1937, travelling to South Africa and Zanzibar before spending two years in Bali, where he converted from his native Judaism to Catholicism, with the encouragement of a Dutch colonial missionary, Father Buys.
His two best-known works from this period are the 1946 wishing tree memorial I wish for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney; and the Bronze Doors on the Mitchell Wing of the State Library of New South Wales, given by Sir William Dixson in honour of David Scott Mitchell.