She studied painting with André Lhote in Paris, in 1955, and at New York's Art Students League with Morris Kantor in 1957.
Together with her second husband, the Frenchman Jacques Bisilliat, and the architect Antônio Marcos Silva, she founded the O Bode folk art gallery in 1972 (until 1992).
During this period, she travelled through Brazil in search of works by popular artists and craftsmen, to build the gallery's collection.
In 1988, at the request of the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro, Maureen, Jacques and Antônio Marcos were invited to work on the formation of the Latin American popular art collection of the Fundação Memorial da América Latina in São Paulo.
Since the 1980s, she has devoted herself to video work, notably the Xingu/Terra feature documentary, shot with Lúcio Kodato, in the Mehinako village in the Upper Xingu.