Born in Hallstead, Kansas, Karl Albert became known for his paintings of the High Sierras and desert landscapes. He grew up in Southern California, and began painting about 1930 while working as the postmaster of Oro Grande, a small town in the Mohave Desert.

He first studied with Edgar Payne and Sam Hyde Harris and then attended the Los Angeles Art Center. He spent a year in Mexico and then in the late 1940s, moved to Southern California, becoming an active artist in Long Beach and later in Alhambra. Before 1960, he did a lot of plein-air landscape painting but then switched to a tighter, studio-painting style. In his later years, he moved to New Mexico and then to Italy with his daughter.