‘I was compelled to drive the blade into the canvas’: The artist Edita Schubert brandished her medical instrument like other artists wield a brush.

The life of Edita Schubert was one of two distinct halves. Throughout a career lasting over thirty years, the artist from Croatia held a position at the Department of Anatomy at the Zagreb University’s faculty of medicine, precisely illustrating cadavers for study for textbooks for surgeons. Within her artistic workspace, she created work that defied simple classification – regularly utilizing the exact implements.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in surgical handbooks,” explains a curator of a new retrospective of Schubert’s work. “She was completely central to that discipline … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” Her anatomical drawings, observes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for surgical trainees currently in Croatia.

The Intermingling of Dual Vocations

Schubert’s dual vocation wasn’t unusual for artists from Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The scalpels she used to make clean incisions in cadavers turned into devices for perforating paintings. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. The test tubes typically reserved for laboratory samples transformed into containers for her life story.

An Artistic Restlessness

In the early 1970s, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of confectionery and condiment containers. But frustration had been building since her student days. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, she’d been forced to paint nudes. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it truly frustrated me, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she later told an art historian, in a seldom-granted conversation. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.”

The Artistic Performance of Cutting

By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. She painted each one a blue monochrome then using an anatomical scalpel and performing countless measured, exact slices. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to expose the underside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She timestamped each to emphasize their nature as events. Through a set of photos created in 1977, 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.

“Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … dissection akin to a life study,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. According to a trusted associate and academic, this statement was illuminating – a hint from a creator who seldom offered commentary.

Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots

Croatian critics have tended to treat Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “I have always believed that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” notes a close friend. “It's impossible to spend 35 years at the Anatomy Institute from early morning to mid-afternoon and remain untouched by the environment.”

Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes

A key insight from a ongoing display is the way it follows these anatomical influences in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, Schubert produced a series of geometric paintings – geometric shapes, subsequently labeled. Contemporary critics categorized them under the trendy neo-geo label. Yet, the actual inspiration was found subsequently, during an archival review of her possessions.

“The question was posed: how are these forms made?” remembers a scholar. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The signature tones – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – matched the precise colors used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books in a manual for surgical anatomy utilized in medical faculties across Europe. “The connection was that both colors surfaced simultaneously,” the account notes. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work.

Embracing Ephemeral Elements

In the late 70s and early 80s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She initiated works using wood lashed with straps. She arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. When asked why she’d shifted to such organic materials, she expressed that the art world had become “barren theoretically”. 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, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She intertwined the stalks into circular forms positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, it still held its power – the leaves and petals now completely dried out but miraculously intact. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The hue has endured.”

A Practitioner of Secrecy

“I prefer to stay cryptic, to hide my intentions,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Secrecy was her strategy. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She eradicated specific works, keeping merely autographed copies. Even with showings at prestigious exhibitions and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she granted virtually no press access and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.

Responding to the Horrors of Conflict

Subsequently, the nineties dawned with the outbreak of conflict. Violence reached Zagreb itself. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She adhered press images and headlines onto panels. She photocopied and enlarged them. Subsequently, she overpainted all elements – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|