A mother of three and the former wife of a navy officer, Morton lived a relatively nomadic life and began her artistic practice as a hobby through drawing.

[3] Morton deployed "confrontational innocence," as described by art historian Lucy Lippard, and humor in her sculptures that referenced everyday decorative forms such as curtains, ruffles and swags.

[5] Formally, Bake Sale (which features a comically low table covered with cakes and pastries against a wall of Celastic bows) typifies the playful interrelationships of objects Morton sought to create in her work.

Curator Marcia Tucker describes Morton's work as "unusual in its totality; it incorporates painting, sculpture, real and crafted objects, natural and artificial materials.

In her statement in the Artpark Visual Arts Program catalog, Morton specified that her intention was, “to increase the theatrical, dramatic quality already present at the site; to make the location as much like a diorama as possible.”[11] The second part of this piece was to glue paintings of various shots of the landscape onto surrounding rocks, bordered by a colorful frame.

Each hand-sewn flag featured the first name of someone close to Morton, from her children to artists such as Barbara Kruger, Rosemary Mayer, Italo Scanga, and Laurie Anderson, along with an associated drawing.

[citation needed] Following her untimely death, in 1980 the New Museum in New York City presented Ree Morton: Retrospective 1971-1977, organized by Alan Schwartzman and Kathleen Thomas.

In 2018 the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia held the first major solo museum exhibition of Morton's work in the United States in over 35 years.