🔗 Share this article ‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: Edita Schubert brandished her medical instrument like painters use a brush. The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. For more than three decades, the artist from Croatia worked at the Department of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, meticulously drawing dissected human bodies for medical reference books. Within her artistic workspace, she made art that resisted every attempt at categorisation – frequently employing the identical instruments. “Her work involved crafting these meticulous, technical diagrams which were used in surgical handbooks,” 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.” These detailed anatomical studies, observes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for surgical trainees in Croatia today. The Bleeding of Two Worlds A split career path was not rare for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Surgical tape designed for medical use secured her sliced creations. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens became vessels for her autobiography. A Creative Urge At the start of the seventies, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in paints and mediums of sweets and salt and sugar shakers. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. While studying at the fine arts academy in Zagreb, she was required to depict nude figures. “I needed to drive the blade into the painting, it genuinely irritated me, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.” Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation That year, this desire became a concrete action. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. She painted each one a blue monochrome before taking a medical scalpel and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material 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, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, 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 … dissection akin to a life study,” she responded to inquiries about the pieces. According to a trusted associate and academic, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the technical draftsman funding her life in the other. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” states a scholar. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon without being affected by the surroundings.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it maps these clinical themes through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. Around 1985, Schubert produced a series of geometric paintings – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. But the truth was discovered only years later, while examining her personal papers. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” recalls a friend. “And she told me, it’s very simple, it’s a human face.” Those characteristic colours – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – were the exact shades employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts in a manual for surgical anatomy used across European medical faculties. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the explanation continues. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. A Turn Towards the Organic In the late 70s and early 80s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She composed displays of skeletal fragments, flower parts, herbs and soot. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, she expressed that the art world had become “barren theoretically”. She was driven to cross lines – to engage with truly ephemeral substances as a response to art that had metaphorically withered. A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms with the leaves and petals arranged inside. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved but miraculously intact. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The pigmentation survives.” A Practitioner of Secrecy “My aim is to remain enigmatic, to conceal my process,” she revealed in terminal-year interviews. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces concealing genuine artworks beneath her bed. She eliminated select sketches, keeping merely autographed copies. Even with showings at prestigious exhibitions and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she conducted hardly any media talks 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. War came to her city. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She reproduced and magnified them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|
The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. For more than three decades, the artist from Croatia worked at the Department of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, meticulously drawing dissected human bodies for medical reference books. Within her artistic workspace, she made art that resisted every attempt at categorisation – frequently employing the identical instruments. “Her work involved crafting these meticulous, technical diagrams which were used in surgical handbooks,” 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.” These detailed anatomical studies, observes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for surgical trainees in Croatia today. The Bleeding of Two Worlds A split career path was not rare for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Surgical tape designed for medical use secured her sliced creations. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens became vessels for her autobiography. A Creative Urge At the start of the seventies, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in paints and mediums of sweets and salt and sugar shakers. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. While studying at the fine arts academy in Zagreb, she was required to depict nude figures. “I needed to drive the blade into the painting, it genuinely irritated me, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.” Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation That year, this desire became a concrete action. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. She painted each one a blue monochrome before taking a medical scalpel and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material 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, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, 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 … dissection akin to a life study,” she responded to inquiries about the pieces. According to a trusted associate and academic, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the technical draftsman funding her life in the other. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” states a scholar. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon without being affected by the surroundings.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it maps these clinical themes through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. Around 1985, Schubert produced a series of geometric paintings – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. But the truth was discovered only years later, while examining her personal papers. “The question was posed: how are these forms made?” recalls a friend. “And she told me, it’s very simple, it’s a human face.” Those characteristic colours – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – were the exact shades employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts in a manual for surgical anatomy used across European medical faculties. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the explanation continues. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. A Turn Towards the Organic In the late 70s and early 80s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She composed displays of skeletal fragments, flower parts, herbs and soot. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, she expressed that the art world had become “barren theoretically”. She was driven to cross lines – to engage with truly ephemeral substances as a response to art that had metaphorically withered. A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms with the leaves and petals arranged inside. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved but miraculously intact. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The pigmentation survives.” A Practitioner of Secrecy “My aim is to remain enigmatic, to conceal my process,” she revealed in terminal-year interviews. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces concealing genuine artworks beneath her bed. She eliminated select sketches, keeping merely autographed copies. Even with showings at prestigious exhibitions and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she conducted hardly any media talks 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. War came to her city. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She reproduced and magnified them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|