‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: Edita Schubert used her surgical blade like creatives handle a paintbrush.

The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. Over a period spanning thirty years, the late Croatian artist worked 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 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 surgical handbooks,” says a curator of a new retrospective of her artistic output. “She was completely central to that discipline … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” Her anatomical drawings, observes a museum curator, are continually used in textbooks for medical students in Croatia today.

The Intermingling of Dual Vocations

A split career path was not rare for artists from Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The medical knives for anatomical dissection became instruments for slicing canvas. The medical tape meant for wound dressing held her perforated artworks together. Laboratory tubes commonly used for samples became vessels for her autobiography.

A Frustration That Cut Deep

In the early 1970s, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of candies and tabletop items. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. While studying at the fine arts academy in Zagreb, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I needed to drive the blade into the painting, it genuinely irritated me, 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 used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.”

The Artistic Performance of Cutting

In 1977, that urge took literal form. 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. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material to reveal its reverse, creating works she documented with forensic precision. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. In a photographic series from that year, 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,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. According to a trusted associate and academic, this statement was illuminating – a glimpse into the mind of an elusive figure.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Croatian critics have tended to treat her twin professions as wholly divided: the radical innovator in one corner, the technical draftsman funding her life in the other. “I have always believed that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” explains a confidant. “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

What makes a current exhibition particularly revelatory is how it traces these medical undercurrents through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. During the middle of the 1980s, 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, while examining her personal papers.

“The question was posed: how are these forms made?” remembers a scholar. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – were the exact shades she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck in a manual for surgical anatomy used across European medical faculties. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the explanation continues. The shaped canvases were essentially distilled anatomical studies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work.

Embracing Ephemeral Elements

During the transition into the 1980s, her creative approach changed once more. 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 felt compelled to transgress – to engage with truly ephemeral substances as an answer to conceptually sterile work.

A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms with the leaves and petals arranged inside. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, it still held its power – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “You can still smell the roses,” one observer marvels. “The hue has endured.”

A Practitioner of Secrecy

“My aim is to remain enigmatic, to conceal my process,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Secrecy was her strategy. She would sometimes exhibit fake works concealing genuine artworks beneath her bed. She eliminated select sketches, only retaining signed reproductions. 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 current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland.

Addressing the Trauma of Battle

The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. War came to her city. The artist answered with a group of mixed-media works. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – black bars resembling barcodes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|