Lilienfeld was a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. She rented a studio at the Städel from 1918. Her artistic circle included her teacher Ugi Battenberg and his sister Mathilde Battenberg. Lilienfeld produced a markedly independent, increasingly expressionist oeuvre comprising landscapes, portraits, and illustrations of literary texts. Under the National Socialist regime she was subjected to persecution as a Jew; her works were removed from public collections and destroyed. Lilienfeld fled to Holland in 1939. In 1942 she was arrested by the German occupiers, then deported and murdered.