Styka left his native Poland to study at the Paris School of Fine Arts. Having travelled to Algeria and Tunisia he exhibited at the Société des Artistes Français from 1911 as well as 16 pictures at the Salon de la Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français. In 1914 Styka joined the Foreign Legion during World War I. When the war was over he visited Morocco, mainly Marrakesh, where he, according to L. Thornton, Women as Portrayed in Orientalist Painting, Paris, 1985, 'painted a series of pictures of brazen couples'.