Gertrude Nason was born in Everett, Massachusetts in 1890. She studied in Boston at the Massachusetts College of Art under Joseph DeCamp and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts under Edmund Charles Tarbell. Her brother was the engraver Thomas Nason, and she was married to the artist William Donahue, with whom she lived in Greenwich Village and had a summer residence in Lyme, Connecticut. She exhibited widely, and won numerous honors and awards. During her career she was a member of the Brooklyn Society of Modern Art, the Creative Arts Association, Lyme Arts Association, the National Association of Women Artists, and the New York Society of Women Artists.