Edita Schubert lived a double life. Over a period spanning thirty years, the esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Institute of Anatomy at the Zagreb University’s faculty of medicine, precisely illustrating dissected human bodies for textbooks for surgeons. In her studio, she made art that resisted every attempt at categorisation – regularly utilizing the exact implements.
“She was producing these really precise, technical illustrations which were used in medical textbooks,” says a director of a current show of Schubert’s work. “She was completely central to that discipline … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, notes a museum curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students in Croatia today.The Intermingling of Dual Vocations
Having two professional lives was not uncommon for Yugoslav artists, who often lacked a viable art market. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The medical knives for anatomical dissection turned into devices for perforating paintings. Adhesive tape intended for bandages bound her fragmented pieces. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens transformed into containers for her life story.
A Frustration That Cut Deep
At the start of the seventies, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. She produced meticulous, hyperrealistic still lifes in oil and acrylic of candies and salt and sugar shakers. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. While studying at the fine arts academy in Zagreb, 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, in a seldom-granted conversation. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.”
Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation
In 1977, that urge took literal form. 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 show the backside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She timestamped each to emphasize their nature as events. 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, making her own form part of the artwork.
“Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … dissection like an evening nude,” 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.Two Lives, Deeply Connected
Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “My opinion since then has been that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” notes a close friend. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon and not be influenced by what you see there.”
Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes
What makes a current exhibition particularly revelatory is the way it follows these anatomical influences 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, during an archival review of her possessions.
“I inquired, how are these shapes created?” states an associate. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were identical tints used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books for a surgical anatomy textbook employed throughout European medical schools. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the explanation continues. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing.
Shifting to Natural Materials
During the transition into the 1980s, her creative approach changed once more. She began creating installations from branches bound with leather. 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 felt an urge to break boundaries – to utilize genuinely perishable matter 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 wove the stems into circles on the ground with the leaves and petals arranged inside. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “The hue has endured.”
An Elusive Creative Force
“I prefer to stay cryptic, to hide my intentions,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Mystery was her method. At times, she showed inauthentic creations while hiding originals under her bed. She destroyed certain drawings, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Even with showings at prestigious exhibitions and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she granted virtually no press access and her output stayed mostly obscure internationally. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.
Addressing the Trauma of Battle
Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She adhered press images and headlines onto panels. She duplicated and expanded them. Then she obscured the surface with paint – black bars resembling barcodes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|
