Csoka studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Budapest, and in Rudney, Csok and Olgyai between 1922 and 1927. He had enjoyed some success, and had exhibited in numerous international shows in Europe before he emigrating to the United States in 1934. The mid-1930s was not an auspicious moment to establish a career as an artist in New York, and Csoka worked for some years as a house painter to make a living. However, in 1940 his first one-artist show was held at the Contemporary Arts Gallery, New York. From 1943 he exhibited with the Brooklyn Society of Artists. Having had a painting included in the Academy annual exhibition of 1935, it was also 1943 when he began his long record of participation in Academy shows; in 1950 he received the Academy's Anonymous Prize in the graphic arts.
Csoka was a painter and etcher of landscape and genre featuring the laboring class at work and at leisure. When he settled in New York he formed an immediate sympathy with the American romantic realist movement and made an easy transition to becoming a portrayer of the American scene. Living in Brooklyn and then later on Long Island he came to embrace the city scene as well.
Csoka taught at Parsons School of Design, 1945-65; Hunter College, 1948-63; City College, 1958-65; the Academy school, 1962-72; and at the Fashion Institute of Technology, 1964-79, all in New York. His textbook Pastel Painting was published by Reinhold Winston in 1962.
Csoka was elected to the Academy in the graphic artists classification. He served on the Council for the year of 1955-56, and from 1972 to 1974.
