Rubin consequently became interested in both fields and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Church of Assy in the French Alps with an interior that was decorated by modern artists in the years after World War II: Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall, Jean Lurçat, and others.
In the mid-1960s, Rubin began writing a book on Dada and Surrealism; upon hearing of this project, Barr invited him to organize a show on the subject for the museum.
Others include works from the collections of William S. Paley, Nina and Gordon Bunshaft, Wolfgang and Florene May Schoenborn, John Hay Whitney, Peggy and David Rockefeller, Mary Sisler, Richard S. Zeisler, and others.
From collectors such as these, or through direct purchases by the museum, Rubin managed to acquire some of the most important works of art in the museum's collection: Marcel Duchamp, The Bicycle Wheel (1913/51), Constantin Brâncuși, The Endless Column (1918), Pablo Picasso, Charnel House (1944–45), Henri Matisse, Memory of Oceana (1952–53) and The Swimming Pool (1952), Jackson Pollock, One: Number 31 (1950).
He made it a habit of installing these shows while circulating around the galleries in a wheelchair (a skiing accident left him partially lame in one leg), directing the placement of work like the conductor of a symphony orchestra, the career to which he had earlier aspired.
It was his most controversial exhibition, for critics complained that in the process of comparing examples of African and Oceanic art with modern works influenced by them, the primitive artifacts lost their original meaning and significance.
In the late 1960s, Rubin moved into a large loft on 13th Street and Broadway in New York City, which he filled with examples of art from the Abstract Expressionist period (Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Herbert Ferber, David Smith, as well as paintings and sculpture by a select number of contemporary artists (Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, Kenneth Noland, Larry Bell, Jules Olitski, Morris Louis, George Segal (artist), Roy Lichtenstein, etc.).
Here Rubin organized gatherings of artists, art historians, dealers and critics, one memorable photograph taken in 1967 records him speaking to Frank Stella, Barbara Rose, Larry Poons, Lucinda Childs, Wilder Green, Annalee and Barnett Newman and Phyllis Hattis (whom he would later marry).
It was a palatial estate with an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the village of Le Plan-de-la-Tour that he called L’Oubradou, “workshop” in Provençal, because most of his writings were done there during the summer months.
“To the extent that the public gets caught up in them, so much the better.”[6] Chevalier, Légion d’honneur In 2005, Rubin was depicted by the artist Kathleen Gilje in the guise of Picasso, as he appeared in a photographic portrait by Henri Cartier-Bresson.