‘I felt forced to stab the knife through the canvas’: Edita Schubert wielded her scalpel like painters use a brush.

Edita Schubert led a dual existence. 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 cadavers for study for textbooks for surgeons. In her private atelier, she produced art that eluded all labels – frequently employing the identical instruments.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in medical textbooks,” says a director of a current show of her artistic output. “She was completely central to that discipline … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, observes a museum curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students in Croatia today.

Where Two Realms Converged

Schubert’s dual vocation wasn’t unusual for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. 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 secured her sliced creations. 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 confectionery and condiment containers. But frustration had been building since her student days. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, she was required to depict nude figures. “I was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it simply got on my nerves, that tight canvas where I was expected to express myself,” she once explained to a scholar, in a seldom-granted conversation. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.”

Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation

By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. She made eleven big pieces. 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 show the backside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. 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, transforming her physical self into creative matter.

“Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … anatomical analysis similar to figure drawing,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. For a close friend and scholar, this explanation was a key insight – a clue from an artist who rarely explained herself.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Croatian critics have tended to treat the artist's dual roles as completely distinct: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My opinion since then has been that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” 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. In the mid-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 distinctive hues – what colleagues called “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” – were identical tints used for drawing neck vasculature in anatomy books in a manual for surgical anatomy used across European medical faculties. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the narrative adds. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing.

A Turn Towards the Organic

During the transition into the 1980s, her creative approach changed once more. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. She arranged collections of bone, petals, spices and ash on floors. Inquired regarding the change to ephemeral components, the artist stated that contemporary art had “dried up intellectually”. She felt compelled to transgress – to work with actual decaying material in reaction to a creatively arid landscape.

One work from 1979, 100 Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She braided the stems into round arrangements positioning the floral remnants in the center. When encountered during exhibition preparation, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved but miraculously intact. “The aroma remains,” a commentator notes. “The hue has endured.”

An Elusive Creative Force

“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 eliminated select sketches, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Despite exhibiting at major international biennales and gaining recognition as a trailblazer, she conducted hardly any media talks and her work remained largely unknown outside her region. 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. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Then she obscured the surface with paint – dark stripes akin to product codes. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|