[3] Born in Berlin, Rubinstein moved at the age of 3 or 4 to Amsterdam, where after World War II she studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten.

Returning to the Netherlands, Gerda's first major commission was for a carving in stone, unveiled in IJmuiden in 1956, followed by "Children Playing," a bronze sculpture in the Amsterdam Oosterpark.

Since her mother, Hanne (nee Hamm), who was her husband’s PA and then a partner in his firm, was not Jewish, and their three children had been christened, they survived the World War II and the privations of the Dutch famine of 1944–1945.

[8]" After the war, Gerda attended the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and was awarded a grant to study in Paris, under Ossip Zadkine.

Her work can be found in many private collections, with further public commissions in Utrecht, Dudley, London, Watford and Bielefeld, Germany.

The subject matter of Gerda features mostly people and a variety of animals including owls, flamingos, hawks, cats, dogs, donkeys, goats.