[1][2] Geller studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1921, and later taught there with Karl Zerbe from 1943 to 1944.

She first received acclaim as a painter of "organic abstractions" in the 1940s when she exhibited with a group of other emerging artists later known as the Boston Expressionists.

[5][6] After marrying the composer Harold Shapero in 1945,[7][8] Geller continued painting and exhibiting, and taught art classes at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

"[15] Geller was a leading expert on encaustic painting who experimented with the medium and developed her own methods, which she used and taught for decades.

An interview in which she discussed her methods was featured in Arts magazine in 1957,[16] and she has contributed to books on the subject.