Painter and oil pastelist Dorothy Heller, who also signed briefly as D. Heller Grunig, was born in New York City on June 26, 1916. She studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in the 1930s, and with Hans Hoffman in New York, NY and Provincetown, MA in the early 1940s. She also studied printmaking at Stanley William Hayter's famed experimental studio, Atelier 17, though it's not clear if she was at his Paris or New York location.

Heller exhibited widely throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art and at the Betty Parsons, Tibor de Nagy, and Poindexter galleries, the Galerie Facchetti in Paris, and the Piccadilly Gallery in London. Despite a career that spanned over fifty years and various successes, Heller's work has been relegated to a quiet corner of the art world, and the details of her career and life are scarce.

In 2013, the first major retrospective of her work since 1980 was held at the Breakthrough Space Gallery at New York's Center for Architecture, and included many of the over 1,300 works left in her studio upon her death in 2003. Her estate is currently represented by the Walter Wickiser Gallery, Inc., which includes her CV on their website. Heller died on November 26, 2003. 

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