Trained in dance and theatre, Rubinstein
turned to a career in photography in 1968 after taking courses with Diane Arbus
and Lisette Model, Arbus's teacher. As a hobby, she had been making intuitive,
subtle photographs for many years.

The tenderness found in Paris centers
on the relationship between Rubinstein's brother and famous father, the pianist
Arthur Rubinstein. The son/student's stance is tentative, but attentive, to the
somewhat forbidding, yet awesome, presence of his father/instructor.

This portrait signals a beginning
and departure for future work by Rubinstein. Taken over ten years prior to her
official foray into photography, one sees the essence of light so capably
"captured" throughout her later work; the image is as much about the
suffused light as the figures. Her later portraits, especially those in the late
sixties and early seventies, are still affectionate documents, but promote a
more direct, sometimes provocative, viewpoint; they are more about the
individual than a moment in time.