[2][7] Two years later she continued education at Art Students League of New York, working with artists Edward Lansing, Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan and Charles Locke.

[7] She additionally worked as an illustrator for other newspapers, including: Daily Worker, The New Masses, L'Unita Operaia, West Oakland Beacon, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

[7] In 1952, de Lappe alongside several artists from the California Labor School went on and founded the Graphic Arts Workshop (GAW), a cooperative printmaking studio in San Francisco.

[6][10] Her artwork is in many public collections, including: National Gallery of Art,[11] the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery,[12][13] Fine Art Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF),[1] Syracuse University, and the Library of Congress.

[5] She moved to Petaluma in the 1990 to be closer to her friend and longtime partner, artist Byron Randall and this romance lasted until his death in 1999.