Perlin, the youngest of six children of Adelle (Adams) and Israel Perlin, was educated at Bishop Spencer College in Saint John"s and a private school in Ontario. She graduated from nursing school in 1934 and worked as a nurse during the Great Depression and the World World War World War II
She left for New York at an early age to study nursing Her passion was not nursing but art where she eventually studied with Samuel Brecher under Hans Hofmann. Perlin moved to Paris in 1950 to study at L"Academic Grande Chaumiere and Academic Ransom to further her art studies.
From there she moved to London to study at the Polytechnic of Central London.
While back at her birthplace she worked at the Saint John"s General Hospital, still not liking that profession. Perlin"s work is displayed in art galleries and in 1994 she was the subject of a biography, Not A Still Life, by Mariam Francis White.
Perlin joined the Bahá"í faith in 1969, the fourth native Newfoundlander to do southern Perlin died on March 5, 2006 at Saint John"s after a long struggle with Alzheimer"s disease.
