Albert Levering was born in Hope, Indiana, the son of Levi L. Levering, a carpenter. The family later relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. Levering studied architecture and practiced that profession for eight years in San Antonio, Texas.

He later abandoned architecture to become a newspaper artist. Levering worked for newspapers in Kansas City, Missouri as well as the Minneapolis Times and Chicago Tribune. In 1896 he moved to New York and worked on the staff of the New York Journal, Tribune and Herald-Tribune. He subsequently worked as a book and magazine illustrator on the staff of Puck, Life, Collier's, and Cosmopolitan. By 1903 he had a regular full-page feature in Harper's Weekly.

In 1909 Levering drew the cover and frontispiece for Mark Twain's short book Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven.