🔗 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. Edita Schubert lived a double life. For more than three decades, the artist from Croatia held a position at the Institute of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for textbooks for surgeons. In her private atelier, she produced art that eluded all labels – regularly utilizing the exact implements. “She was producing these really precise, technical illustrations which were used in anatomy guides,” notes a curator of a new retrospective of the artist's oeuvre. “She was completely central to that discipline … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, notes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students in Croatia today. Where Two Realms Converged Having two professional lives was not uncommon for artists from Yugoslavia, who often lacked a viable art market. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The medical knives for anatomical dissection were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples transformed into containers for her life story. A Frustration That Cut Deep At the start of the seventies, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in acrylic and oil paints of sweets and tabletop items. But frustration had been building since her student days. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she once explained to a scholar, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.” The Artistic Performance of Cutting By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. She painted each one a blue monochrome then using an anatomical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. She then folded back the sliced fabric to expose the underside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In one 1977 series of photographs, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she pressed her visage, locks, and hands into the cuts, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. According to a trusted associate and academic, this was a revelation – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary. Two Lives, Deeply Connected Croatian critics have tended to treat her twin professions as wholly divided: the experimental avant garde artist on one side, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” notes a close friend. “You can’t work for 35 years in the Institute of Anatomy from early morning to mid-afternoon and not be influenced by what you see there.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface What makes a current exhibition particularly revelatory is how it maps these clinical themes in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Contemporary critics categorized them under the trendy neo-geo label. But the truth was discovered only years later, during an archival review of her possessions. “I inquired, how are these shapes created?” states an associate. “And she told me, it’s very simple, it’s a human face.” Those characteristic colours – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were the exact shades she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck for a surgical anatomy textbook utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The shaped canvases were essentially distilled anatomical studies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. Shifting to Natural Materials In the late 70s and early 80s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. Questioned about the move to natural substances, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. 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, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the work maintained its impact – the leaves and petals now completely dried out though wonderfully undamaged. “The aroma remains,” a viewer remarks. “The hue has endured.” The Artist of Mystery “I prefer to stay cryptic, to hide my intentions,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Obscurity was her technique. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She eliminated select sketches, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Although she participated in global art events and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she granted virtually no press access and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Confronting the Violence of War Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Violence reached Zagreb itself. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She reproduced and magnified them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|
Edita Schubert lived a double life. For more than three decades, the artist from Croatia held a position at the Institute of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for textbooks for surgeons. In her private atelier, she produced art that eluded all labels – regularly utilizing the exact implements. “She was producing these really precise, technical illustrations which were used in anatomy guides,” notes a curator of a new retrospective of the artist's oeuvre. “She was completely central to that discipline … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, notes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students in Croatia today. Where Two Realms Converged Having two professional lives was not uncommon for artists from Yugoslavia, who often lacked a viable art market. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The medical knives for anatomical dissection were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples transformed into containers for her life story. A Frustration That Cut Deep At the start of the seventies, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in acrylic and oil paints of sweets and tabletop items. But frustration had been building since her student days. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she once explained to a scholar, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.” The Artistic Performance of Cutting By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. She painted each one a blue monochrome then using an anatomical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. She then folded back the sliced fabric to expose the underside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In one 1977 series of photographs, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she pressed her visage, locks, and hands into the cuts, transforming her physical self into creative matter. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. According to a trusted associate and academic, this was a revelation – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary. Two Lives, Deeply Connected Croatian critics have tended to treat her twin professions as wholly divided: the experimental avant garde artist on one side, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” notes a close friend. “You can’t work for 35 years in the Institute of Anatomy from early morning to mid-afternoon and not be influenced by what you see there.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface What makes a current exhibition particularly revelatory is how it maps these clinical themes in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Contemporary critics categorized them under the trendy neo-geo label. But the truth was discovered only years later, during an archival review of her possessions. “I inquired, how are these shapes created?” states an associate. “And she told me, it’s very simple, it’s a human face.” Those characteristic colours – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were the exact shades she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck for a surgical anatomy textbook utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The shaped canvases were essentially distilled anatomical studies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. Shifting to Natural Materials In the late 70s and early 80s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. Questioned about the move to natural substances, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. 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, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the work maintained its impact – the leaves and petals now completely dried out though wonderfully undamaged. “The aroma remains,” a viewer remarks. “The hue has endured.” The Artist of Mystery “I prefer to stay cryptic, to hide my intentions,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Obscurity was her technique. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She eliminated select sketches, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Although she participated in global art events and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she granted virtually no press access and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase. Confronting the Violence of War Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Violence reached Zagreb itself. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She reproduced and magnified them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|