Pal Fried was aborn in Budapest, Hungary in 1893.  he first studied under Hugo Pohl at the Hungarian Academy, later moving to Paris to train under Lucien Simone at the Acad'e Julien and with Claude Monet.  Hugo Pohl is credited with Pal Fried's concentration of many portraits, nudes and Oriental scenes in pastel.  His primary area of painting was in ballerinas.

In 1947 Fried moved to the United States to teach at the Academy of Arts in new York.  He became a popular society portraitist, a stsatus he maintained during the times he lived in Hollywood, California.  Among his subjects were the Gabor sisters and Marilyn Monroe.  His works are often signed Fried Pal (simply his last name first).  He died in New York City in 1976.

Fried is listed in the Benezit Dictionnaire and Dictionnaire des Peintres.