His father was the Kortrijk painter Pierre-Louis Verwee (1807 - 1877), a romantic painter of winter landscapes, who had been a student of Eugene Verboeckhoven. His brother Louis-Charles Verwee , also a painter would be specializing in family scenes and portraits.

Alfred graduating Verwee became a surveyor, but was unable to continue studying engineering because of financial difficulties. Already in his youth he had began to paint as a hobby. He was supported by his father so he began to paint the same style of romantic landscapes and animals. At that time he was under the influence of Louis Robbe, Eugene Verboeckhoven and the Frenchman Constant Troyon, a supporter of the Barbizon School .

From 1853 he began seriously thinking about following in the footsteps of his father and become a painter. He was educated in the private academy of the Brussels based genre and portrait painter Charles François Deweirdt (1799 - 1855), who also came from Kortrijk, and where Louis-Pierre Verwee worked. He led Alfred Verwee in the pure academic-romantic tradition. Alfred Verwee was enrolled at the Academy, but received only a few lessons there.

He first exhibited in 1857 at the Brussels Salon an animal painting "Cattle at pasture". His breakthrough would come in 1863 at the Brussels Salon with a similar painting "Attelage Flamand", for which he won a gold medal. At the time of his first successes Verwee had become a good realistic painter, but had not yet the maturity of a great artist.

He won another gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1864 with his painting "The stringing of the oxen" (purchased by the Museum of Kortrijk). The writer and art critic Théophile Gautier wrote praises. Alfred Verwee met in Paris the animal sculptor Antoine Barye, who advised him to further develop his career in Paris. During this period he met Edouard Manet and the Barbizon School painters Théodore Rousseau, Narcisse Diaz de la Peña . These contacts would later lead to a remarkable change of style to realism in his works, reacting against the style of Eugene Verboeckhoven and, also, Louis Robbe and Joseph Stevens .

His stay in Paris did not lead to the desired commercial success and in 1865 he went back to Brussels. During that period he became good friends in Brussels with the Hague marine painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag (who also owned several works by Verwee). Through him came in contact with Mesdag's cousin Lawrence Alma-Tadema .

He moved with his family to London in the period 1867 - 1868. But he did not achieve commercial success there either and soon went home, as destitute as before.

He got married in 1868. In the same year he undertook a journey through the Netherlands with his friend Louis Dubois. Dordrecht with its fertile pastures inspired him. Alfred Verwee was also influenced by the Dutch landscape painter Willem Roelofs, who then lived in Brussels.

He became in 1868 a founding member of the Brussels art circle " Société Libre des Beaux-Arts", a group of young artists who rebelled against the academic and romantic realists of previous generations. These young artists wanted a freer, more realistic art style. In this environment of burgeoning talent, Verwee developed further his style and technique. Verwee would now spot in the wild subjects to capture on canvas, a reaction against the academic style of his training.

His realism was expressed between 1875 and 1880 by a grand vision of the Flemish farmland, the polders and the banks of the Scheldt with cattle grazing on fertile soil. He used lighter, more vibrant colors, put down with a softer touch. This change of style could be first seen in his painting "Landscape with cows" in 1868 (Museum Mesdag , The Hague). This new style continued in his work "The Stallion", which yielded him a gold medal at the Brussels Salon of 1869. He perfected this style in the many works that followed: "Harvest in the north of Flanders" (Salon 1872, Brussels), "A Span in Zeeland" (Salon, 1873), "Meadow of poppies", "Banks of the Scheldt" (1873), "Horses in the region of Ostend" (1878) and his masterpiece of the "Scheldt estuary" (1880).

He also had a good relationship with the artists from the School of Tervuren . He was a co-founder in 1876 of the Brussels artists group "La Chrysalide", which existed until 1881. This circuit is considered a precursor of the art "L'Essor" and later "Les XX ". He was also friends with Euphrosine Beernaert , who had come in contact with him through the animal painter Louis Robbe. When he attempted to become a member of Les XX, he was refused by James Ensor and Willy Finch. They took revenge as Alfred Verwee was one of the organizers of the Brussels Salon, which had declined their work.

Along with the painters François Musin, Louis Dubois, Joseph Van Severen Donck and Amédée Lynen, he was asked in 1878 by the architect Naert Laureys to participate in the pictorial decoration of the new Kursaal of Ostend. He decorated a room with paintings of different animals. This hall was later named the Verwee hall.

Around 1880, Alfred Verwee fell under the spell of the Flemish coastal area of Knokke Heist, its dunes and sea, but especially the underlying landscape. Gradually Knokke grew from only a hamlet into an artists' village in the summer, attracting many leading artists from home and abroad. This lively artists' colony was known as Knokke Artist Colony. The artists were on friendly terms with each other and painted the picturesque spots in the Knokke area and further to Zealand.

Alfred Verwee painted during this period in this area several mature works, using a pre-impressionistic touch. He sought a compromise between two specialties, painting animals and landscapes. His monumental cows, pigs or horses, alone or in groups, are statically displayed in the foreground with a photographic accuracy. This happened in his studio. The landscape in the background was painted in the open air with the Impressionist technique spots and using mostly clear to silvery colors. This combination did not always achieve the desired result. Verwee always studied carefully the pose for his subjects, which the anatomical accuracy of the animals reflected. Thus he is regarded as the purest animal painter in the Belgian art. Pol de Mont , the curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp called him once: "Our first anima winch". Some examples from this period are "The beautiful Flanders" (1884) (KMSK Brussels) and "Fighting between bulls" (KMSK Ghent).

In 1885 Alfred Verwee undertook a trip to Italy in the company of Baron Alphonse de Haulleville.

Alfred Verwee saw that Knokke could become a tourist attraction. He built his villa in 1888 "Fleur des Dunes" at the Seaway (now Lippenslaan) in Knokke. He continued to promote the coastal city. Together with his friend and disciple Paul Parmentier (1854 - 1902), he founded in 1891 the association "Knocke-Attractions".

From 1892 he was plagued by rheumatism and his health deteriorated. Later he contracted throat cancer. In 1895 he traveled to Egypt and Algeria and southern France, hoping that the warmer climate would help with his disease. A few weeks before his death, his friends brought him one last time to Knokke so he could enjoy a final tour of this region which was so dear to him. He died at his home in Schaerbeek on September 15, 1895.