Lilien belonged to the young artistic circles of Lviv.[2] In the first half of the 1930s she worked as an architect in Warsaw and Lviv, then traveled to the US in 1935.[2] Upon being invited by Frank Lloyd Wright,[3][5] who offered her a scholarship,[3] she joined the Taliesin studio[1][3] and became the first woman apprentice under Wright.[2][5]
Lilien returned to Poland in the late 1930s.[3][6] At the start of World War II she was in Lviv, but she managed to escape to the US via Romania[2][6] and Italy, traveling on a last ship from Naples before Italy went to war.[2][3] She received a travel visa to come to America thanks to Wright's help.[3] In 1941, she spent some time at Taliesin.[2] As she did not want to overstay her welcome,[3] she moved to Chicago, where she started teaching at the School of the Art Institute,[2] where she founded its interior architecture program and was subsequently appointed Head of the Department of Interior Design.[2][5] Her focus was to treat interior architecture as its own field of architecture instead of just perceiving it as decoration; her program changed the nationwide approach to teaching the subject.[5] She taught at the university for over 25 years, becoming a mentor to generations of architecture students.[5] Eventually, she became a US citizen.[6] After retiring from the School of the Art Institute in 1967,[1][2] she gave classes in history of architecture at Columbia College Chicago.[2]
Apart from teaching, Lilien also engaged in promoting Polish art.[3] In 1943, together with Maria Werten, she organized an exhibition of Polish woodcuts at the Art Institute of Chicago.[7] She was also the initiator of the Treasures from Poland exhibition presented in 1966 at the Art Institute to commemorate the millennium of the Polish State.[3] Her Chicago home became an artistic salon[2][3] where she welcomed Polish artists and immigrants, such as Arthur Rubinstein, Witold Lutosławski, Witold Rowicki, Wanda Wiłkomirska, Krzysztof Penderecki, Mira Zimińska and Walentyna Janta-Połczyńska.[3] She was friends with Felicja Krance.[3]
Lilien was a member of the board of directors of the Kosciuszko Foundation, a member of the Chicago Architectural Foundation and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, as well as an honorary member of the Polish Arts Club of Chicago.[1]
Her name bears The Marya Lilien Foundation for the Advancement of Interior Design which awards scholarships to the best students of interior architecture.[5][8] It was founded in the late 1960s[2] or in the 1970s.[5]
