Sofia Dymshiz-Tolstaya took painting classes from S. S. Egorov in 1906 and 1907 and studied under Leon Bakst and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky at Zvantseva’s private school in St. Petersburg and then was trained by Sh. Geren in Paris in 1910 and 1911.

After the October revolution she became a vigilant figure of cultural development and took the most active part in organization of the Fine Arts Department of the RSFSR People's commissariat for education in Moscow in 1918, in work of the All-Russian central exhibition bureau under it, and managed this department’s publishing section in the late 1920s.