Her father was a merchant who had moved to Riga from Chernihiv, Russian Empire (today Ukraine) to escape the 1903–1906 wave of pogroms.

[1] Two years later, in October 1926, she began studies at the Bauhaus School of Art, Design and Architecture in Dessau.

Her teachers included Josef Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Marcel Breuer and Georg Muche.

[5] Once she had completed her education, Monastirskaja started working for two well known German textile producers, first in Mössingen and then in Sagan.

A certificate of 18 April 1932 stated that her job responsibilities included the preparation of the artistic designs of "decorative and padding fabrics in formal and technical terms".