There, whilst attending secondary school, young Albert was apprenticed to an artist.
When World War II started, he joined the Yugoslavian army.
It was not long before Yugoslavia surrendered and he became a prisoner of war where he was imprisoned in the Ferramonti internment camp.
[3] Alcalay's work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, the Museum of Modern Art in Rome, Colby College, Simmons College, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts, among others.
[3][4] The story of Alcalay's escape from German Nazis and Italian Fascists, his development as a painter, his immigration to the United States where he became one of the founders of Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES), and his struggle to remain creative despite severe health problems, is told in a new film, "Albert Alcalay: Self Portraits," premiered in January 2004 at the Harvard Film Archive.