Gladys May Mabel Brooke-Pechell was born in Cannanore, India, the daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Sir (Augustus) Alexander Brooke-Pechell, 7th Baronet,[3] who was a Surgeon in the Army Medical Department, the Royal Army Medical Corps and later at the Royal Hospital Chelsea during the Great War.

[4][5][2] She exhibited her figurative oil paintings with the London Group in 1920, becoming acquainted with Dora Carrington and Roland Penrose.

[5][6] In 1920, with Nancy Cunard, she was briefly involved with the bohemian scene in Paris but soon Dobrée and her husband moved to Larrau in the French Pyrenees in 1921 – at this time she exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants.

[4] They returned to England in 1929 to live at Mendham Priory, Harleston, Norfolk where their daughter Georgina, who became a distinguished clarinettist, was born the next year.

[8] The Dobrées in turn lived in Earl's Colne, Essex, and Collingham, West Yorkshire, before returning to London in 1950.

[5] Due to poor health and World War II her output became reduced but in the 1960s she returned to collage, albeit from her bed, and held exhibitions at the Zwemmer Gallery.