Gloria Benedetti Seneres was born on September 26, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York to Margaret Spinelli and Pompey Benedetti.

She began drawing at age 5. At 10 her mother committed suicide affecting the rest of her life. She was passed over to her grandparents as her father was a gambler. Her Uncle Frank D' Annunzio took her under his wing encouraging her to pursue art.

After graduating from Prospect Heights High School; Class of 1942, she began a life long lust for travel, she went to College of the Americas in Mexico to study Spanish and Mexican History, later that year went to England, Switzerland Holland, Italy and France. 1942 attended the Art Students League.

She was a commercial artist by day and by night a fine arts student at Cooper Union from 1944 to 1948 graduating with honors in Painting. In 1949 she studied painting in Paris with Fernando Leger.