Her parents were simply overwhelmed by their daughter's genius and eccentricity and probably wanted to prevent Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler from becoming a painter. Nevertheless, she attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Dresden from 1915 and socialized in the Dresden bohemian scene. She had contacts with the Dresden Secession Group 1919 around Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller, Otto Griebel and Oskar Kokoschka.

In 1921, she married the painter and opera singer Kurt Lohse and went to Hamburg with him. Lohse squandered all her money. From then on, her life was characterized by poverty and marital crises, which is why she separated for the first time in 1921. In 1929, Kurt Lohse left his wife for Elsa Haun, the daughter of his concertmaster. Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler was inwardly broken by the separation and lived in miserable conditions until she was committed to the Hamburg-Friedrichsberg state hospital.

There she created the impressive Friedrichsberger Köpfe a series of portraits. The prints were enthusiastically celebrated by art critics and made Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler a famous but still poor artist. This series of portraits is the main motif of her art: People on the margins of society, social outsiders and the so-called demimonde. Art critics mention her in the same breath as Otto Dix, Oskar Kokoschka, Jeanne Mammen and Egon Schiele.

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