After graduating from Seward Park High School, Montgomery worked painting faces on dolls and religious statues.

Montgomery moved to Los Angeles in 1955 with her husband, where she worked for Thomas Usher, an African American jewelry designer.

[6] Working as a curator Montgomery was an arts advocate, fighting for greater representation of African American artists.

Appointed as an Ethnic Art Consultant at the Oakland Museum, Montgomery successfully organized eight exhibitions of established and emerging Black artists,[7] including a 1971 retrospective of African American sculptor Sargent Johnson (1887-1967) and a 1970 exhibition on California Black Craftsmen[8] that featured nineteen artists including Eileen Abdulrashid, Gloria R. Bohanon, Sheryle Butler, Hubert Collins, Dale Brockman Davis, Ibibio Fundi, Manuel Gomez, Vernita Henderson, Ernest Leroy Herbert, Ben James, Bob Jefferson, Doyle Lane, William Maxwell, Evangeline Montgomery, John Outterbridge, Donald R. Stinson, Carole Ward, Curtis Tann, and Harry S. Richardson.

Her worked metal ancestral boxes are made of sterling silver and incorporate materials such as semi-precious stones and found objects.

[5] Montgomery describes her artistic process and inspiration, “My visual ideas are expressed abstractly by creating geometrical compositions with overlays of textured forms.

My inspiration for color development has always been interpreting the transparencies found in nature—its nuances and richness of surfaces, textures, and brilliant color whether in plants, water, stone, and incredible variation of life forms.”[2] Montgomery has exhibited her work in various solo and group shows in museums and galleries across the United States, including Delaware, Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, Louisiana, Florida, and New York.