Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1931 Berlin, Germany

Died: 2022 Reigate, Surrey

Year of Migration to the UK: 1959

Biography

Sculptor, Gerda Rubinstein was born to a Jewish father and Christian mother in Berlin, Germany on 16 July 1931, one of three children. In 1933, at the age of three or four, she moved with her family to Amsterdam to escape the Nazis. However, in 1940, amidst the turmoil of the Second World War, her father, Willem Rubinstein, a garment designer, was arrested by the Nazis and deported to Auschwitz, where he perished. Rubinstein’s mother, Hanne (née Hamm), who was not Jewish, initially worked as Willem’s personal assistant before becoming his business partner. Owing to her her non-Jewish status and the christening of her children, Rubinstein and her siblings survived both the Nazi occupation and the Dutch famine of 1944–45.

Despite these hardships, Rubinstein emerged from the war with an enduring sense of optimism. After studying under Wessel Couzijn and enrolling in the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam in 1948, she was awarded a grant in 1952 to study under renowned sculptor, Ossip Zadkine at L’Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. While in France she was awarded the Prix Jeune Sculpture. Returning to the Netherlands, she achieved early recognition with several major commissions, including a stone carving unveiled in IJmuiden in 1956 and the bronze Children Playing for Oosterpark in Amsterdam. Her work soon extended beyond the Netherlands, with commissions in England and Germany. In 1958, she travelled to London where she met her future husband, the architect Christopher Stevens. Once the couple married, Rubinstein relocated to Blackheath, southeast London in 1959 and became embedded in the local art scene.

A sense of a hopeful worldview shaped Rubinstein’s artistic practice, informing her sculptures, which frequently centred on themes of resilience and liberation. She strove to capture the sense of freedom she experienced in the aftermath of the occupation - a theme that defined her career. Rubinstein’s sculptural techniques evolved from carving in stone and refractory brick to modelling in wax and clay, with her pieces eventually cast in bronze, resin, or cement. Drawing inspiration from her surroundings, she created naturalistic works focusing on human figures and on animals, such as owls, flamingos, donkeys, and cats. She deliberately allowed her figurative sculptures to communicate their meaning independently, aspiring for them to be self-explanatory. Occasionally, she also made portraits. She was a member of the Blackheath Art Society – a society with branches across the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and with a global membership. Lady Gibberd, a founder of the Harlow Arts Trust at Harlow in Essex (created as a new town from 1947) saw some of Rubinstein’s pieces and introduced her work to the Trust, suggesting it for a project initiated in 1946 and developed under the guidance of her husband, the noted architect, Sir Frederick Gibberd. Rubinstein subsequently made several bronze sculptures for the project, including: theCity (1970), a bust of Sir Frederick Gibberd(1979), Baby (1992), Julia(1995 and stolen in 1997), and Screen (1999). Rubinstein also undertook various public commissions beyond Harlow, such as The Picnic (1988) for Conington Road in Lewisham, south London, Arctic Terns (1989) in Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley in the West Midlands, and Pensive Girl (1992) located outside Lewisham Town Hall.

Throughout her career, Rubinstein participated in several notable exhibitions. In 1964 she held a solo show at the Holland Park Gallery, London; in 1977 she showed with the London Group as a non-member, and in the 1980s her works featured twice in the Whitechapel Open. During the 1990s, she regularly showed in the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition and in 2006, Gerda Rubenstein: Retrospective was presented at the Gibberd Gallery in Harlow. Rubinstein’s influence extended beyond her sculptures; she was a dedicated teacher from 1967 until her retirement in 1996, instructing students aged 18 to 80 at adult education institutes in Lewisham and Greenwich, under the auspices of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Though she was required to retire at 65, her reluctance to do so shows her passion for teaching. That her sculptures were widely appreciated is evident by hercommission in 1982 to design a trophy for Cossor Electrics in an annual competition. In 2008, Rubinstein relocated to Reigate, Surrey, where she continued creating art in her garden studio throughout her 80s. Even as her mobility declined, she remained committed to her art, which consistently echoed her lifelong themes of hope, resilience, and freedom. Gerda Rubinstein died in Reigate, Surrey, England in May 2022 at the age of 91. In the UK public domain, her work is held by the Harlow Art Trust and in the Leicestershire County Council Artworks Collection, while pieces can still be seen in public spaces in Lewisham.