🔗 Share this article ‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: Edita Schubert brandished her medical instrument like painters use a brush. Edita Schubert led a dual existence. Throughout a career lasting over thirty years, the late Croatian artist was employed by the Anatomy Institute at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for surgical textbooks. In her studio, she created work that defied simple classification – regularly utilizing the exact implements. “Her work involved crafting these meticulous, technical diagrams which were used in medical textbooks,” explains a director of a current show of the artist's oeuvre. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” These detailed anatomical studies, notes a museum curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students currently in Croatia. Where Two Realms Converged A split career path was not rare for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, 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 were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages held her perforated artworks together. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples became vessels for her autobiography. An Artistic Restlessness At the start of the seventies, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of sweets and salt and sugar shakers. But frustration had been building since her student days. During her time at the Zagreb art school, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she confided in a researcher, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.” The Artistic Performance of Cutting By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. She made eleven big pieces. She painted each one a blue monochrome prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to expose the underside, creating works she documented with forensic precision. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In a photographic series from that year, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she pushed her face, hair, and fingers through the perforations, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … dissection akin to a life study,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. According to a trusted associate and academic, this statement was illuminating – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. Two Lives, Deeply Connected Art commentators in Croatia often viewed Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My perspective is that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” explains a confidant. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from early morning to mid-afternoon and remain untouched by the environment.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it maps these clinical themes within creations that superficially look completely abstract. In the mid-1980s, she made a collection of angular works – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. However, the reality was uncovered much later, during an archival review of her possessions. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” recalls a friend. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – matched the precise colors she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck in a manual for surgical anatomy employed throughout European medical schools. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing. A Turn Towards the Organic During the transition into the 1980s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She positioned gatherings of osseous material, floral remains, seasonings and cinders. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, Schubert explained that art “was completely desiccated in the concept”. She was driven to cross lines – to work with actual decaying material as a response to art that had metaphorically withered. An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms placing the foliage and petals within. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the work maintained its impact – the organic matter now fully desiccated yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The colour is still there.” 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. Secrecy was her strategy. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She destroyed certain drawings, keeping merely autographed copies. Despite exhibiting at major international biennales and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Confronting the Violence of War The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. War came to her city. The artist answered with a group of mixed-media works. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She photocopied and enlarged them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|
Edita Schubert led a dual existence. Throughout a career lasting over thirty years, the late Croatian artist was employed by the Anatomy Institute at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for surgical textbooks. In her studio, she created work that defied simple classification – regularly utilizing the exact implements. “Her work involved crafting these meticulous, technical diagrams which were used in medical textbooks,” explains a director of a current show of the artist's oeuvre. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” These detailed anatomical studies, notes a museum curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students currently in Croatia. Where Two Realms Converged A split career path was not rare for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, 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 were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages held her perforated artworks together. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples became vessels for her autobiography. An Artistic Restlessness At the start of the seventies, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of sweets and salt and sugar shakers. But frustration had been building since her student days. During her time at the Zagreb art school, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she confided in a researcher, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.” The Artistic Performance of Cutting By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. She made eleven big pieces. She painted each one a blue monochrome prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to expose the underside, creating works she documented with forensic precision. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In a photographic series from that year, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she pushed her face, hair, and fingers through the perforations, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … dissection akin to a life study,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. According to a trusted associate and academic, this statement was illuminating – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. Two Lives, Deeply Connected Art commentators in Croatia often viewed Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My perspective is that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” explains a confidant. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from early morning to mid-afternoon and remain untouched by the environment.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it maps these clinical themes within creations that superficially look completely abstract. In the mid-1980s, she made a collection of angular works – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. However, the reality was uncovered much later, during an archival review of her possessions. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” recalls a friend. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – matched the precise colors she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck in a manual for surgical anatomy employed throughout European medical schools. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing. A Turn Towards the Organic During the transition into the 1980s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She positioned gatherings of osseous material, floral remains, seasonings and cinders. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, Schubert explained that art “was completely desiccated in the concept”. She was driven to cross lines – to work with actual decaying material as a response to art that had metaphorically withered. An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms placing the foliage and petals within. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the work maintained its impact – the organic matter now fully desiccated yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The colour is still there.” 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. Secrecy was her strategy. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She destroyed certain drawings, keeping merely autographed copies. Despite exhibiting at major international biennales and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Confronting the Violence of War The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. War came to her city. The artist answered with a group of mixed-media works. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She photocopied and enlarged them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|