Malvin Albright shared with his twin brother, Ivan, the artistic guidance of their father, the lyrical landscape painter, Adam Albright. In young adulthood, Malvin studied architecture at the University of Chicago, and sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; he also studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1923/24, and at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York.
Albright worked in sculpture until 1930, when he began to exhibit painting under the pseudonym, Zissley; in 1950 he abandoned this idiosyncratic signature, and returned to using his true name.
He often, but not consistently, painted in a magic realist style similar to that of his twin, Ivan. A frequent exhibitor in Academy exhibitions, he was awarded an Altman Prize in the Annual of 1942, the Edwin Palmer Memorial Prize in the Annual of 1948, and an Altman Prize in the Annual of 1964.
