Dora Holzhandler was born into a Polish-Jewish family in Paris, France in 1928. To escape Nazi persecution, she moved with her immediate family to London in 1934, where she studied at the Anglo-French Art School (1948–50). In 1949, she began her artistic career in England, exhibiting in the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) Young Contemporaries show; she would continue creating and exhibiting her distinctive celebrated naïve style of painting, influenced by École de Paris artists, for more than 60 years.