Dunn was born Elizabeth Dyke Acland on 23 September 1870 at Holnicote House, the homestead of Mount Peel Station inland from Peel Forest in South Canterbury, New Zealand.

[1] She was the tenth child of the Honourable John Barton Arundel Acland and Emily Harper, who was also a painter.

[2][3] In 1896, she married Charles Arthur Dunn, a painter, son of Reverend James Dunn and Angelina Anne Dyke Troyte, at the Church of the Holy Innocents that belongs to Mount Peel Station.

[3] They spent time at Mount Peel Station in South Canterbury, before moving to live in California in 1921.

[11] She died in San Diego, California, on 13 September 1959, where she lived from 1921 until her death.