Her first teacher was the Hamburg artist Theobald Riefesell, followed by the painters Carl Rodeck and Hinrich Wrage.

Back in Hamburg, she attracted the attention of the art gallery director Alfred Lichtwark as a painter of flowers and fruit.

[1] Cramer exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

In addition, Molly Cramer promoted young artists by buying their works and also funded study tours for Ernst Eitner.

Towards the end of her life, she suffered a decline in her standard of living and was forced to sell paintings from her collection.