Eugenie Gershoy was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States as a child. Her interest and talent in art was encouraged from a very young age. Gershoy studied at Columbia and the Art Students League where she met Stirling Calder. Early in her career she became an active member of the Woodstock art colony. In Woodstock she experimented by sculpting in the profusion of indigenous materials that she found. Working with fieldstone, oak and chestnut, Gershoy created works based on classic formulae. As she became more interested in the dynamism of everyday life, she found that these materials and her idiom were too restrictive.

With Gypsy Dancer, c. 1935, Gershoy depicts a real life character with wit and whimsy. She successfully captures the dancer's movement and form in marble.