[6] She also studied at the Corcoran Museum Art School in Washington, D.C.[6] Early in her career, Putnam was noted for her busts of children and for garden and fountain figures.

[6] She exhibited an overtly sensual piece at the National Academy of Design in 1915, Charmides [Dialogue], a nude woman and man asleep together, which was described as "Rodin-like".

[T]his angel with wide flung hands and upward gaze symbolizes liberation of our faculties and our abilities, the enfranchisement of the soul released by the kindly gift of Death.

Her bust of Spanish cellist Pablo Casals was highly praised: When playing, he always closes his eyes, tilts his head a little to the side, and seemingly loses himself in the magic of his music.

[9]Her Sea Horse Sundial (1922) – a winged cherub joyfully riding a seahorse hobby-horse (while the toy's stick casts its shadow on the sundial) – was widely praised, and received awards from the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and elsewhere.

She also had a success with her life-size, three-quarter-length, bas-relief portrait of William Dean Howells (1926), for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

About 1920, sculptor Anna Hyatt and Putnam rented an apartment and studio at 49 West 12th Street, Manhattan.

[6] Her desire to pursue "a more modern aesthetic" brought her to Italy in 1927, where she studied under Libero Andreotti, and later under Alexander Archipenko in New York City.

[6] She collaborated with architect Paul Philippe Cret on the Art Deco Puck Fountain (1930–1932), for the west garden of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.[15] Inscribed below her Figure of Puck is the elf's famous line from A Midsummer Night's Dream: "What fooles these mortals be."

The marble sculpture, damaged by acid rain and vandalism, was removed in 2001, restored, and placed inside the library.

On behalf of the conservative National Sculpture Society (of which she was a fellow), Putnam vehemently advocated that The Met purchase realist works.

[28] She exhibited regularly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1910 and 1944, and won the 1923 Widener Gold Medal for Sea Horse Sundial.

Among her students were Elfriede Abbe,[34] Laura Gilpin,[35] Ethel Painter Hood,[36] Beatrice Gilman Proske,[14] Lilian Swann Saarinen, Marion Sanford, and Katharine Lane Weems.