Dušan Gavela, painter, printmaker, illustrator, caricaturist, and teacher, was born in Belgrade, Serbia on April 18, 1939. He first studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris between 1963-1964. Gavela then continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade under Professor Ljubica Cuca Sokić and graduated in 1967. That same year, he returned to France where he lived until 1969. Gavela taught sculpture at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Belgrade and was a member of the Association of  Fine Artists of Serbia and the Association of Fine Artists of Applied Arts and Designers of Serbia. There were at least nine solo exhibitions of his work between 1971 and 2002.

Dušan Gavela died in Vienna on June 30, 1999. Nikola Kusovac wrote a monograph on Gavela in 2008.