Dr. Alfred Lewin Copley, was born in Dresden, Germany on June 19, 1910. He fled from Nazi Germany in 1935. His mother, a sister and many other Jewish relatives died in the Holocaust. Copley earned his first medical doctorate at the Dresden Academy and moved to Switzerland, in 1935. It was in Basel that he split his time between the scientific and artistic disciplines, which he would continue to pursue for the rest of his life. After two years in Switzerland, he moved to the United States in 1939. Copley was a physician and physiological researcher, he published hundreds of scientific articles. Most dealt with hemorheology, the study of the flowing properties of blood, and the discipline of biorheology, which he helped develop, on the flowing properties of all biological fluids.

He had earned his medical degrees in both Germany and Switzerland and worked variously with the Veterans Administration Hospital in East Orange, N.J., the New York Medical School, the University of Virginia and Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. He was the founder and editor of three scientific journals: Thrombosis Research, Hemorheology and Biorheology. As a physician and physiological researcher, he published hundreds of scientific articles. Most dealt with hemorheology, the study of the flowing properties of blood, and the discipline of biorheology, which he helped develop, on the flowing properties of all biological fluids. He was nominated twice for Nobel prizes by his colleagues. As an artist, he went by the name “L. Alcopley.” He worked simultaneously in both professions for more than 40 years.

After moving to New York in 1937 he studied Art and Art History at Columbia University in Manhattan. He became a US citizen in 1943 and began studying printmaking at S.W. Hayter's Atelier 17, working there between 1945 and 47.

He was one of a dozen New York artists who in 1949 started ‘The Club’, an informal group that included socialized and worked together. The Club or the Artists’ Club was located at 39 East 8th Street and was founded by a group of twenty artists. The group also included fellow Abstract Expressionists Franz Kline, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and Alcopley's close friend, the composer Edgard Varese. It closed in April 23, 1950 after a three-day seminar. In Europe he helped start the companion Le Club in Paris. He was also a co-editor of Leonardo, an international journal for artists. In 1949 he also married Icelandic artist Nina Tryggvadottir. Later that year she went to back to Iceland for a short visit. There she was informed that she was not able to return to the United States because she was suspected of being a Communist sympathizer. Copley joined her in Paris where they lived for a few years together with their daughter, born 1951. They returned to New York City in 1959.

Copley's art is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, among others.

Dr. Afred Lewin Copely died on Jan. 28,1992 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, New York. He was 81 years old and was a resident of Manhattan.