Gabrielle de Veaux Clements, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, native, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and learned etching from Stephen Parrish. She also studied in Paris, France, with Adolphe Bouguereau. She made her home in Baltimore, Maryland, and summered in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

She, along with her companion and fellow artist, Ellen Day Hale, were part of the etching revival in the Southern United States in the early 20th century, teaching etching in Charleston, South Carolina, to such artists as Alice R.H. Smith and Elizabeth O'Neill Verner.