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In the 1940s, amidst the modernists' interest in the subconscious, original art by self-taught artists was in trend. On this wave, Sobel experienced a rapid rise to fame in the New York art scene. Almost immediately, it became clear that in Janet Sobel, the art world was faced not with another curiosity, but with a completely unique and high-quality creative phenomenon. Through her son's efforts, the artist met the prominent philosopher, psychologist and educator John Dewey, gallery owner and collector Sidney Janis, and the artist Marc Chagall.

Around this time, in the early 1940s, Sobel also became friends with the surrealist Max Ernst. The newspapers relished the details of the artist's bourgeois life and mockingly retold the stories of how Janet enthusiastically treated the famous artist to her own baked chicken. Max Ernst apparently liked not only the chicken, as he introduced Janet to his wife, the gallery owner Peggy Guggenheim.