Evelyn Dunbar studied at Rochester School of Art, Chelsea School of Art (1927) and the Royal College of Art (1929–33). She painted murals from 1933 -36 at Brockley School, a collaboration with her RCA tutor (and lover) Cyril Mahoney (1903–1968) and in 1937 they wrote and illustrated together Gardeners’ Choice. 

In 1938 she set up the Blue Gallery in Rochester, exhibiting her own work alongside that of Edward Bawden (1903–1989) and Barnett Freedman (1901–1958) and others. In 1940 she was appointed an official war artist, becoming the only woman (amongst 36 men) to be given a full time salaried position by the WAAC. 

She held her only solo exhibition at Withersdane, Wye, Kent in 1953, although the WAAC included numerous pieces in touring exhibitions ranging from Aberdeen Art Gallery to MOMA, New York. 

A posthumous exhibition was held in 2006 at St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, and in 2015 Liss Llewellyn mounted a major retrospective of her recently rediscovered studio at Pallant House Gallery. 

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