‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert wielded her scalpel like painters use a brush.

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, precisely illustrating human anatomical specimens for medical reference books. In her private atelier, 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 medical textbooks,” notes a curator of a new retrospective of her artistic output. “She was deeply immersed in that work … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” Her anatomical drawings, notes a arts scholar, are continually used in textbooks for surgical trainees in Croatia today.

Where Two Realms Converged

A split career path was not rare for artists from Yugoslavia, who often lacked a viable art market. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The medical knives for anatomical dissection were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Surgical tape designed for medical use bound her fragmented pieces. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens became vessels for her autobiography.

A Creative Urge

At the start of the seventies, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in acrylic and oil paints of sweets and salt and sugar shakers. 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 was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it truly frustrated me, that tight canvas where I was expected to express myself,” she later told an art historian, one of the few people she ever granted an interview. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.”

The Act of Dissection Becomes Art

In 1977, that urge took literal form. She made eleven big pieces. She painted each one a blue monochrome prior to picking up a surgical blade and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material to show the backside, producing pieces recorded with clinical accuracy. She timestamped each to emphasize their nature as events. In a photographic series from that year, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, transforming her physical self into creative matter.

“Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … dissection akin to a life study,” Schubert answered regarding the works' significance. For an intimate confidant and researcher, this was a revelation – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the radical innovator in one corner, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “I have always believed that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” states a scholar. “It's impossible to spend 35 years at the Anatomy Institute from early morning to mid-afternoon without being affected by the surroundings.”

Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface

The revelatory nature of a present showcase is how it maps these clinical themes in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – 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?” states an associate. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – matched the precise colors she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck within a reference book for surgeons utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing.

A Turn Towards the Organic

In the late 70s and early 80s, her creative approach changed once more. She began creating installations from branches bound with leather. She composed displays of skeletal fragments, flower parts, herbs and soot. Questioned about the move to natural substances, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She felt compelled to transgress – to work with actual decaying material 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 braided the stems into round arrangements positioning the floral remnants in the center. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved yet astonishingly whole. “You can still smell the roses,” a commentator notes. “The pigmentation survives.”

A Practitioner of Secrecy

“I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Mystery was her method. At times, she showed inauthentic creations stashing authentic works out of sight. She eliminated select sketches, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Although she participated in global art events and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she gave almost no interviews and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.

Confronting the Violence of War

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 photocopied and enlarged them. Then she obscured the surface with paint – black bars resembling barcodes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|