🔗 Share this article ‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert wielded her scalpel like other artists wield a brush. The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. Over a period spanning thirty years, the esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Department of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, carefully sketching cadavers for study for textbooks for surgeons. Within her artistic workspace, she created work that defied simple classification – frequently employing the identical instruments. “She was producing these really precise, technical illustrations which were used in medical textbooks,” explains a curator of a new retrospective of Schubert’s work. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” These detailed anatomical studies, comments a museum curator, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia. Where Two Realms Converged Having two professional lives was not uncommon for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. But the way these two worlds bled into each other was. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies turned into devices for perforating paintings. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples transformed into containers for her life story. A Creative Urge In the early 1970s, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in oil and acrylic of sweets and tabletop items. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. During her time at the Zagreb art school, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that tight canvas where I was expected to express myself,” she once explained to a scholar, in a seldom-granted conversation. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.” Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation That year, this desire became a concrete action. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. Each was coated in a single shade of blue before taking a medical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to reveal its reverse, producing pieces recorded with clinical accuracy. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. Through a set of photos created in 1977, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … dissection like an evening nude,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For a close friend and scholar, this statement was illuminating – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary. Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the radical innovator in one corner, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “I have always believed that her dual selves were intimately linked,” notes a close friend. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.” Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes The revelatory nature of a present showcase is how it maps these clinical themes through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. In the mid-1980s, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. But the truth was discovered only years later, during an archival review of her possessions. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” states an associate. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – were the exact shades used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books for a surgical anatomy textbook used across European medical faculties. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the account notes. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. Embracing Ephemeral Elements During the transition into the 1980s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She initiated works using wood lashed with straps. She positioned gatherings of osseous material, floral remains, seasonings and cinders. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She was driven to cross lines – to work with actual decaying material in reaction to a creatively arid landscape. An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She wove the stems into circles on the ground positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “The scent of roses persists,” a commentator notes. “The hue has endured.” A Practitioner of Secrecy “I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Obscurity was her technique. At times, she showed inauthentic creations stashing authentic works out of sight. She destroyed certain drawings, only retaining signed reproductions. Although she participated in global art events and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Addressing the Trauma of Battle Subsequently, the nineties dawned with the outbreak of conflict. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|
The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. Over a period spanning thirty years, the esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Department of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, carefully sketching cadavers for study for textbooks for surgeons. Within her artistic workspace, she created work that defied simple classification – frequently employing the identical instruments. “She was producing these really precise, technical illustrations which were used in medical textbooks,” explains a curator of a new retrospective of Schubert’s work. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” These detailed anatomical studies, comments a museum curator, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia. Where Two Realms Converged Having two professional lives was not uncommon for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. But the way these two worlds bled into each other was. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies turned into devices for perforating paintings. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples transformed into containers for her life story. A Creative Urge In the early 1970s, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in oil and acrylic of sweets and tabletop items. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. During her time at the Zagreb art school, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that tight canvas where I was expected to express myself,” she once explained to a scholar, in a seldom-granted conversation. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.” Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation That year, this desire became a concrete action. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. Each was coated in a single shade of blue before taking a medical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to reveal its reverse, producing pieces recorded with clinical accuracy. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. Through a set of photos created in 1977, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … dissection like an evening nude,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For a close friend and scholar, this statement was illuminating – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary. Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the radical innovator in one corner, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “I have always believed that her dual selves were intimately linked,” notes a close friend. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.” Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes The revelatory nature of a present showcase is how it maps these clinical themes through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. In the mid-1980s, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. But the truth was discovered only years later, during an archival review of her possessions. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” states an associate. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – were the exact shades used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books for a surgical anatomy textbook used across European medical faculties. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the account notes. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. Embracing Ephemeral Elements During the transition into the 1980s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She initiated works using wood lashed with straps. She positioned gatherings of osseous material, floral remains, seasonings and cinders. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She was driven to cross lines – to work with actual decaying material in reaction to a creatively arid landscape. An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She wove the stems into circles on the ground positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “The scent of roses persists,” a commentator notes. “The hue has endured.” A Practitioner of Secrecy “I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Obscurity was her technique. At times, she showed inauthentic creations stashing authentic works out of sight. She destroyed certain drawings, only retaining signed reproductions. Although she participated in global art events and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Addressing the Trauma of Battle Subsequently, the nineties dawned with the outbreak of conflict. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|