‘I had to plunge the knife into the canvas’: Edita Schubert used her surgical blade like other artists wield a brush.

Edita Schubert lived a double life. Over a period spanning thirty years, the artist from Croatia worked at the Institute of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, carefully sketching cadavers for study for medical reference books. In her private atelier, she made art that resisted every attempt at categorisation – often using the very same tools.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in surgical handbooks,” says a director of a current show of her artistic output. “She was completely central to that discipline … She was totally unfazed about being in dissections.” These detailed anatomical studies, comments a museum curator, are continually used in textbooks for surgical trainees currently in Croatia.

The Bleeding of Two Worlds

Having two professional lives was not uncommon for artists from Yugoslavia, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. Yet, the fusion of these two domains was distinctive. The surgical blades for precise cuts on bodies were transformed into tools for cutting fabric. Adhesive tape intended for bandages secured her sliced creations. The test tubes typically reserved for laboratory samples became vessels for her autobiography.

A Frustration That Cut Deep

In the early 1970s, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in acrylic and oil paints of confectionery and tabletop items. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that taut surface on which I had to talk about something,” she confided in a researcher, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I used the knife to pierce the canvas, not a paintbrush.”

Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation

By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. The artist created eleven sizable paintings. Each was coated in a single shade of blue then using an anatomical scalpel and performing countless measured, exact slices. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material to reveal its reverse, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She timestamped each to emphasize their nature as events. In one 1977 series of photographs, titled Self-Portrait Through a Sliced Painting, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, making her own form part of the artwork.

“Indeed, my entire oeuvre carries a sense of dissection … dissection like an evening nude,” 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

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “I have always believed that her dual selves were intimately linked,” notes a close friend. “You can’t work for 35 years in the Institute of Anatomy from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon without being affected by the surroundings.”

Biological Inspirations Beneath the Surface

A key insight from a ongoing display is the way it follows these anatomical influences in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. During the middle of the 1980s, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – trapeziums, as they came to be known. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. However, the reality was uncovered much later, during an archival review of her possessions.

“I inquired, how are these shapes created?” states an associate. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The distinctive hues – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were identical tints 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. “It became clear those hues emerged concurrently,” the explanation continues. The shaped canvases were essentially distilled anatomical studies – created concurrently with her daytime medical drawing.

A Turn Towards the Organic

During the transition into the 1980s, 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. Inquired regarding the change to ephemeral components, she expressed that the art world had become “barren theoretically”. She was driven to cross lines – to utilize genuinely perishable matter as an answer to conceptually sterile work.

An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She braided the stems into round arrangements placing the foliage and petals within. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, the work maintained its impact – the floral elements now totally preserved yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “The colour is still there.”

An Elusive Creative Force

“I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Secrecy was her strategy. At times, she showed inauthentic creations while hiding originals under her bed. She destroyed certain drawings, only retaining signed reproductions. Although she participated in global art events and being celebrated as a pioneering figure, she granted virtually no press access and her art was predominantly unrecognized abroad. A current museum exhibition is her first major solo show outside her homeland.

Responding to the Horrors of Conflict

Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. Schubert responded with a series of collages. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She photocopied and enlarged 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|