Gladys Dalla Husband was born in Winnipeg, Canada on March 3, 1899.  Her family moved to England in 1903 but returned to Banff in 1907. She studied art with Miss J. Topham Brown who had studied at the Slade School in England.

After her father died, her family though wealthy when her father was alive had to carefully manage their affairs. At age twenty-five Husband used an inheritance from her grandmother to travel to England and then Paris where she pursued her art education. In 1929 she exhibited with the Salon des Surindépendants and was included in gallery exhibitions. By this point she had dropped her first name, preferring to be known by her middle name of Dalla.

In 1927, Husband met Stanley William Hayter after seeing his exhibition at the Sacre du Printemps gallery. She and her friend, Alice Carr du Croft visited Hayter and convinced him to teach them printmaking - thus was the beginning of what was to become Atelier 17. Husband and Hayter, who was divorced from his first wife, American Edith Fletcher, began a romantic affair about 1930. She worked actively at Atelier 17 helping Hayter with two projects supporting the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War.  The portfolios, Solidarité and Fraternité (which benefitted the Spanish Children’s Fund) were published at Atelier 17 in 1936 and 1939 respectively and contained works by Hayter and Husband and other artists such as Picasso, Miro, Kandinsky, Masson, and Tanguy.

Husband and Hayter ended their romance in 1938, though they remained friends. When World War II began in late 1939 she returned to Canada and in May of 1940 she left for Mexico to join a group of Canadian artists who were working there. Husband died of blood poisoning on August 15, 1943, in Mexico City following ear surgery. Her grave is unknown and her Mexican paintings disappeared.