‘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 esteemed Croatian creator was employed by the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zagreb’s medical faculty, carefully sketching dissected human bodies for surgical textbooks. In her studio, she made art that resisted every attempt at categorisation – frequently employing the identical instruments.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in surgical handbooks,” notes a curator of a new retrospective of Schubert’s work. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She was entirely comfortable in the dissection room.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, observes a arts scholar, are continually used in textbooks for surgical trainees currently in Croatia.

Where Two Realms Converged

A split career path was not rare for artists from Yugoslavia, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. But the way these two worlds bled into each other was. The scalpels she used to make clean incisions in cadavers turned into devices for perforating paintings. Adhesive tape intended for bandages bound her fragmented pieces. The test tubes typically reserved for laboratory samples became vessels for her autobiography.

An Artistic Restlessness

In the early 1970s, Schubert was initially operating within conventional painting boundaries. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of candies and tabletop items. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. 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 tight canvas where I was expected to express myself,” she confided in a researcher, in a seldom-granted conversation. “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. The artist created eleven sizable paintings. She painted each one a blue monochrome then using an anatomical scalpel and performing countless measured, exact slices. She then folded back the sliced fabric to show the backside, creating works she documented with forensic precision. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In one 1977 series of photographs, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she pressed her visage, locks, and hands into the cuts, making her own form part of the artwork.

“Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … dissection like an evening nude,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For an intimate confidant and researcher, this statement was illuminating – a glimpse into the mind of an elusive figure.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed the artist's dual roles as completely distinct: the experimental avant garde artist on one side, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My opinion since then has been that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” notes a close friend. “It's impossible to spend 35 years at the Anatomy Institute daily for hours on end without being affected by the surroundings.”

Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes

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, Schubert produced a series of geometric paintings – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. Yet, the actual inspiration was found subsequently, during an archival review of her possessions.

“The question was posed: how are these forms made?” recalls a friend. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – were identical tints employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts within a reference book for surgeons used across European medical faculties. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the explanation continues. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing.

Shifting to Natural Materials

Towards the end of the seventies and start of the eighties, the artist's work shifted direction again. 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 utilize genuinely perishable matter as an answer to conceptually sterile work.

One work from 1979, 100 Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She wove the stems into circles on the ground placing the foliage and petals within. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “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. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces while hiding originals under her bed. She eradicated specific works, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Although she participated in global art events and receiving acclaim as an innovator, she gave almost no interviews and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland.

Responding to the Horrors of Conflict

The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. War came to her city. The artist answered with a group of mixed-media works. She adhered press images and headlines onto panels. She photocopied and enlarged them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – black bars resembling barcodes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|