1931 – Gerda Rubinstein was born in Berlin in 1931 and moved to Amsterdam in 1933. After the was she briefly worked in a pottery and went to evening classes for life drawing; she was invited to work in the studio of Wessel Couzijn who encouraged her to apply for the sculpture classes at the Rijks Academie which she attended from 1949-51. In 1952 a scholarship enabled her to study at the Grande Chaumiere in Paris under Ossip Zadkine; she won a Prize Jeune Sculpture and travelled for a year before returning to Amsterdam where she got her first commission for a carving in stone for a school in ljmuiden that was unveiled in 1956. This was followed in 1958 by a bronze sculpture in the Ooster Park in Amsterdam. In 1958 she came to London and settled in Blackheath with her husband and baby daughter. In 1967 Pat Gibberd saw her exhibition in Gallery 66.; she recommended her work to the Harlow Art Trust who commissioned her to make City for Bishopsfield which was sited in April 1971. Other works in Harlow, bought by the Trust, include Screen outside Purford Green Infant School, Baby at William Martin Primary School […]