Alfred Owles was born in Nottingham, England on July 4, 1892. Owles studied at the Nottingham Academy of Fine Art. He immigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He enrolled in the Army Air Service in August of 1914 as an aerial photographer and gunner until his discharge in June of 1920. It was this experience that helped determine the subject matter of many of his paintings. After the war Owles opened a studio in San Francisco, California and in 1924 moved across the Golden Gate to Marin County where he had homes in Fairfax and Novato. During the World War II years, his illustrations appeared in Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, and Colliers magazines. His most famous painting was "Satan's Pipe Organ", a World War II canvas that portrayed anti-aircraft guns pointed skyward.

Primarily a watercolorist, during his early career he specialized in illustrations of airplanes. During the latter part of his life he focused on painting landscapes of Marin County. His works were exhibited at Gumps in San Francisco, the San Diego Fine Art Gallery, and Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco. Alfred Owles died in Novato, Marin County, California on May 26, 1978.