In 1937, due to the increasingly precarious position of communists in Poland, she left to live in Paris, Spain, Portugal, and Canada, and eventually arrived as a refugee in the US, where she would remain until her early death.

In her New York flat, a letter was found at her side, of which she had managed to write only one sentence: "The joy that you are alive will probably kill me..."[5] However, this is unconfirmed.

Her early paintings have been lost, but according to surviving descriptions, they depicted geometric, typographic compositions composed of diagonal lines, which introduced dynamism.

[4] Her early sculptures show the influence of Wittig and of French sculptor Aristide Maillol, but with an increased attention to abstracted geometric volumes.

[8] At the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, Żarnowerówna met Henryk Stażewski, Maria Łucja Nicz-Borowiakowa, and Szczuka.

In 1921, she made her debut in the Spring Salon of the Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych [pl][5] (Society for Fine Arts Promotion) in Warsaw.

She collaborated with Szczuka, and together they displayed their works at the 1923 Wystawa Nowej Sztuki (Exhibition of New Art) in Vilnius, and in Berlin's Der Sturm gallery.

[9] Żarnowerówna had left-wing views, and many of her posters, print designs, and photomontages were a mixture of political propaganda and avant-garde art.

Through her brother David, a doctor and an avid member of the Polish Communist Party, she was acquainted with Marxist ideology and became involved in the revolutionary movements taking place during the inter-war period.