Girl Stretching

Gerda Rubinstein was born in Berlin in 1931and moved to Amsterdam in 1933 where she attended the Rijks Academie, winning a scholarship to study in Paris under Ossip Zadkine. Returning to Amsterdam she was awarded her first public sculpture commissions.

In 1958 she came to London where in 1967 Pat Gibberd saw her work on exhibition and recommended it to the Harlow Arts Trust. She was commissioned to make sculptures for the town and the Gibberd Garden including a portrait of Sir Frederick. Gerda's sculptures are very popular in Harlow. They are familiar, well appreciated and many inspire real affection.

Gerda’s sculptures have developed from early carving in stone and then refractory brick, in which she carved negative shapes into which bronze was poured. She now concentrates on modelling in wax for small work or in clay for larger pieces, which are then cast in bronze or resin.

Gerda explains: "My sculptures are almost always of people, getting my inspiration from where I live. I have also made portraits and modelled birds and animals. I hope that the work, which is generally figurative, will be self-explanatory without the need for titles. I have come to realise that the sense of freedom and hope that I experienced as a teenager in Holland, after five years of occupation in World War II, has really never left me and that it still colours my work".