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Ámos' career started under the influence of postimpressionism. His activity was particularly influenced by Róbert Berény and Aurél. After his initial post-Nagybánya style, he arrived at an expressionsm full of visions of his childhood, and of Jewish lithurgy. Chagall's art was of decisive importance in its development but the fact he met the great artist in person in 1937 was also significant.
His style became gloomier which was largely due to the war threatening Europe, World War II, and before long, Ámos' life and existence became uncertain.
His art became rhapsodic and messianic. His portraits reflect changes of symbolic-expressive-surrealistic style. His self-portrait of 1930 had a traditional arrangement, his style was characterized by the contrast of light and shadow, by contours and mass highlighted. The way he modelled his self-portrait in Paris in 1937, and the daring way the figure was cut off by the edge of the picture are similar to his self-portrait with nail and hammer, which is cut in a particularly stressed way: it depicts only accoutrements (nail and hammer) and the head in close-up. In this picture, the surroundings vanished, only the tortured face and the symbols are present expressing fatalism typical of Jewish intellectuals (e.g. István Farkas, Miklós Radnóti) between the two world wars.
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