Alfred Gabali was born and raised in Germany.  He was a merchant marine as a young man and later used the ships he worked on as subjects for his paintings.  He was quite successful as an artist and painted freely until the Nazis began to require artists to sign loyalty oaths.  In an attempt to avoid this, Gabali painted under aliases but was later forced to flee with his wife, Friedel Puetz.  They traveled to Holland and managed to avoid detection with the help of the artistic community. 

After the war, Fred and Friedel emigrated to New York City.  Gabali later established his art studio in a tourist cape in Cape Cod. 

Alfred Gabali died in the 1960's.