Eugenie Gershoy (1901-1983) was a Russian-American sculptress and painter. Born Jan. 1, 1901, in Krivoi Rog, Russia, Ms. Gershoy emigrated to the United States with her family in 1903. Ms. Gershoy (nicknamed "Johnny") won a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York where she studied under A. Stirling Caldwell, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Boardman Robinson (1921-1922); she later lived for several years in the artists' colony at Woodstock, New York, where she was influenced by the noted sculptor John Flanagan.
Joining the Federal Art Project in 1936, Miss Gershoy developed the dextrine, glue, and plaster composition known as "polychrome," and her polychrome papier-mache sculptures were commissioned by numerous clients over the years. Ms. Gershoy also taught at the New Orleans Art School (1941-1942), California School of Fine Arts (1946), and in public schools in San Francisco. She was also an avid traveler, visiting or studying in England and France (early 1930s), Mexico and Guatemala (1947, 1948, and 1961), Paris (1951), and Africa, India, and the Orient (1955).
Ms. Gershoy's work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Isaac Delgado Museum in New Orleans, Wichita Museum of Fine Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many others. Her work is in the permanent collections of many major museums and galleries, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Modern Art.
From the guide to the Eugenie Gershoy Papers, 1914-1965, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)
