According to an article in the Popular Photography magazine in 1932, Max Peter Haas purchased the stock images of the Paul Thompson photo agency, thereby extending his worldwide network and allowing him to set up the European Picture Service. Like other photo agencies such as Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillemette, the European Picture Service employed freelance photographers on an assignment basis.
Max Peter Haas was known in particular for his sports and action photographs and also recorded accidents on the streets of New York. He used a Leica, a miniature camera, which facilitated flexible and dynamic handling and was the preferred medium for German photojournalist during the 1920s. His serendipitous series of photographs of a shooting near his office on the corner of 5th Avenue near 34th Street on 15 January 1941 became among his most famous shots.
It can be guessed as it was the case for other photo agencies found by émigrés as Black Star, PIX, Rapho Guillemette, that also European Picture Service served as doorkeeper and starting point for émigrés photographers to restart their profession and to get in contact with the exile photo scene in New York. From 1947 until 1953 the German émigré Erika Stone worked for the European Picture Service.