Alexander Nakov Mutafov was born in Shumen on May 8, 1879 in the family of a soldier in the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation, Nako Mutafov. The future artist received high school education in Varna. It was there that he had his first contact with the great muse of all his work - the sea element, which inspired his first artistic attempts and remained an unchanging theme in his art until the end. Mutafov's style in this period was influenced by his encounters with the works of the great Bulgarian artists of the beginning of the 20th century - Anton Mitov, Nikolay Pavlovich, Ivan Mrkvichka.

From 1899 to 1902 Alexander Mutafov studied painting at the Art Academy in Turin in the class of Professor Giacomo Grosso, and from 1902 to 1909 at the Academy in Munich in the class of Professor Leo von Löftz. After his return to Bulgaria, during the First World War, Mutafov was appointed as a military painter-correspondent of the Fourth Preslav Infantry Division, which operated in Dobrudja. Later, at his request, he was transferred to Varna to the Black Sea Fleet. In this period, Mutafov led a real "war with a brush in his hand" - he created over 200 works with pencil, ink, watercolor, oil paints. A large number of them - sketches and small-format drawings - are today in the possession of the National Museum of Military History.

Alexander Mutafov worked as a drawing teacher in Dupnitsa and Sofia until 1920, when he was appointed as a teacher at the Art Academy in Sofia, and from 1921 he was a professor of practical and constructive perspective. He is a member of the "Contemporary Art" Society and one of the founders of the "Native Art" Society.
The 20s and 30s of the 20th century were a decisive period for the final formation of Mutafov's artistic style. The seascape and the life of sailors and fishermen became dominant themes in his work. The realistic drawing with which the artist conveys the momentary characteristics of the water element leads to the idea of ​​the numerous, different, even opposite faces of the Black Sea. The mastery in revealing the restless and destructive waves, on the one hand, and the initially harmonious and life-giving natural force, on the other, places Alexander Mutafov among the best Bulgarian mariners.
In 1937 Mutafov received a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition for his painting "The Blue Boat". Participated in all "Native Art" exhibitions, in many OHI and "Contemporary Art" exhibitions, as well as in presentations of Bulgarian art abroad. He has solo exhibitions in Sofia, Varna, Stara Zagora, Plovdiv and Prague. Mutafov's works are owned by the National Art Gallery, the Sofia City Art Gallery, the galleries in Plovdiv, Haskovo, Sliven and other cities in the country, the Renaissance Museum in Varna, as well as private collections in Bulgaria and abroad. About 60 of his works are kept in his studio in Sozopol, built in 1937 and turned into a house-museum after the artist's death. Alexander Mutafov died on November 25, 1957 in Sofia.