🔗 Share this article ‘I felt forced to stab the knife through the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert used her surgical blade like creatives handle a paintbrush. Edita Schubert lived a double life. Over a period spanning thirty years, the esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Department of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, carefully sketching cadavers for study for medical reference books. 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 surgical handbooks,” explains a organizer of a fresh exhibition of her artistic output. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” These detailed anatomical studies, comments a arts scholar, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia. The Intermingling of Dual Vocations Schubert’s dual vocation wasn’t unusual for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The medical knives for anatomical dissection turned into devices for perforating paintings. Surgical tape designed for medical use held her perforated artworks together. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens evolved into receptacles for her personal history. A Frustration That Cut Deep During the beginning of the 1970s, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. She produced meticulous, hyperrealistic still lifes in oil and acrylic of candies and condiment containers. 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 later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.” The Act of Dissection Becomes Art That year, this desire became a concrete action. She made eleven big pieces. All were rendered in a uniform blue hue prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. She then folded back the sliced fabric to show the backside, producing pieces recorded with clinical accuracy. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. In one 1977 series of photographs, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, turning her own body into artistic material. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” she responded to inquiries about the pieces. For a close friend and scholar, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. A Dual Existence, Inextricably Linked Analysts frequently presented her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” explains a confidant. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it traces these medical undercurrents in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. However, the reality was uncovered much later, during an archival review of her possessions. “I asked her, how do you produce the trapeziums?” states an associate. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – were identical tints used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books for a surgical anatomy textbook used across European medical faculties. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. 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 arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She felt an urge to break boundaries – to work with actual decaying material in reaction to a creatively arid landscape. A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She wove the stems into circles on the ground placing the foliage and petals within. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, the work maintained its impact – the organic matter now fully desiccated yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “The colour is still there.” An Elusive Creative Force “I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” she revealed in terminal-year interviews. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces while hiding originals under her bed. She eradicated specific works, only retaining signed reproductions. Although she participated in global art events and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she gave almost no interviews and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland. Addressing the Trauma of Battle The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She duplicated and expanded 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 lived a double life. Over a period spanning thirty years, the esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Department of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, carefully sketching cadavers for study for medical reference books. 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 surgical handbooks,” explains a organizer of a fresh exhibition of her artistic output. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” These detailed anatomical studies, comments a arts scholar, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia. The Intermingling of Dual Vocations Schubert’s dual vocation wasn’t unusual for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The medical knives for anatomical dissection turned into devices for perforating paintings. Surgical tape designed for medical use held her perforated artworks together. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens evolved into receptacles for her personal history. A Frustration That Cut Deep During the beginning of the 1970s, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. She produced meticulous, hyperrealistic still lifes in oil and acrylic of candies and condiment containers. 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 later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.” The Act of Dissection Becomes Art That year, this desire became a concrete action. She made eleven big pieces. All were rendered in a uniform blue hue prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. She then folded back the sliced fabric to show the backside, producing pieces recorded with clinical accuracy. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. In one 1977 series of photographs, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, turning her own body into artistic material. “Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” she responded to inquiries about the pieces. For a close friend and scholar, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself. A Dual Existence, Inextricably Linked Analysts frequently presented her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” explains a confidant. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.” Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface A key insight from a ongoing display is how it traces these medical undercurrents in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. However, the reality was uncovered much later, during an archival review of her possessions. “I asked her, how do you produce the trapeziums?” states an associate. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – were identical tints used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books for a surgical anatomy textbook used across European medical faculties. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work. 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 arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She felt an urge to break boundaries – to work with actual decaying material in reaction to a creatively arid landscape. A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, involved her removing petals from a hundred blooms. She wove the stems into circles on the ground placing the foliage and petals within. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, the work maintained its impact – the organic matter now fully desiccated yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “The colour is still there.” An Elusive Creative Force “I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” she revealed in terminal-year interviews. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces while hiding originals under her bed. She eradicated specific works, only retaining signed reproductions. Although she participated in global art events and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she gave almost no interviews and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland. Addressing the Trauma of Battle The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She duplicated and expanded them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|