Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Ernest Albert won the Graham Art medal given by the Brooklyn School of Design at the age of fifteen and shortly thereafter began sketching for New York newspapers.  He attended the Brooklyn Art School and in 1877 started work at Harley Merry’s theater in New York City as a scenic artist and set designer.  He spent the next decade painting theater sets in St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston, and he became a founding member of the American Society of Scenic Painters.

In 1894, Albert and his family settled in New Rochelle, New York, where he built a family home, Grayeyres.  At about this time Albert gave up set design in favor of landscape painting.  He painted in Old Lyme, Connecticut, with other landscape artists who comprised the tight-knit artists’ colony. During the summers he painted on Monhegan Island in Maine.  In 1914 he was elected President of the Allied Artists of American.  He was an associate of the National Academy of Design and was an active member of the Lyme Art Association, the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Salmagundi Club and the National Arts Club in New York.  His work has been featured in many exhibitions including a solo exhibition at Vose Galleries in September 1981.