Suzanne Schweig Martyl Langsdorf grew up in St. Louis and earned the nickname of "Martyl" from her mother - she later used this name when signing her artwork. Her father was a portrait photographer and her mother a painter, and she provided Martyl with her initial training in art. Martyl earned her first awards as a child including first prize in a drawing competittion at the St. Louis Art Museum at the age of eleven.

Following graduation from Washington University, Martyl studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (Broadmoor Academy) under Boardman Robinson and Arnold Blanch. She earned commissions from the WPA (Works Progress Administration) to paint a series of murals in public spaces including post offices in Kansas and Missouri as well as the Building of the Recorder of Deeds in Washinton, D.C. Following her marriage to nuclear physicist, Alexander Langsdorf, Jr. in 1941, the couple settled in St. Louis and then moved on to Chicago where Dr. Langsdorf worked on the Manhattan Project. In 1947, Martyl was hired to design the cover of the "Bulletin", a magazine "created by scientists who saw an immediate need for a public reckoning in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." She later served as art editor for the publication between 1965-1970.