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

Edita Schubert lived a double life. For more than three decades, the late Croatian artist was employed by the Anatomy Institute at the Zagreb University’s faculty of medicine, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for medical reference books. In her private atelier, 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,” notes a organizer of a fresh exhibition of her artistic output. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” Her illustrations of human anatomy, notes a arts scholar, are still published in handbooks for anatomy students currently in Croatia.

The Bleeding of Two Worlds

Having two professional lives was not uncommon for Yugoslav artists, who often lacked a viable art market. However, the manner in which these spheres merged was unique. The medical knives for anatomical dissection became instruments for slicing canvas. The medical tape meant for wound dressing secured her sliced creations. The test tubes typically reserved for laboratory samples evolved into receptacles for her personal history.

A Frustration That Cut Deep

During the beginning of the 1970s, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in oil and acrylic of confectionery and salt and sugar shakers. However, discontent had been growing since her academy years. At Zagreb’s Academy of Fine Arts, she’d been forced to paint nudes. “I needed to drive the blade into the painting, it truly frustrated me, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she later told an art historian, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.”

The Act of Dissection Becomes Art

In 1977, that urge took literal form. Schubert produced eleven large canvases. All were rendered in a uniform blue hue then using an anatomical scalpel and executing numerous intentional, accurate incisions. Subsequently, she turned back the cut material to expose the underside, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. She dated each one to underscore that they were actions. In one 1977 series of photographs, called Self-Portrait With a Perforated Work, she pushed her face, hair, and fingers through the perforations, transforming her physical self into creative matter.

“Yes, all my art has a character of dissection … dissection like an evening nude,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. For an intimate confidant and researcher, this explanation was a key insight – a glimpse into the mind of an elusive figure.

Two Lives, Deeply Connected

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed her twin professions as wholly divided: the pioneering creator in one sphere, the anatomical artist supporting herself separately. “My perspective is that those two personalities were deeply, deeply connected,” explains a confidant. “One cannot be employed for three decades in an anatomy department from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon and remain untouched by the environment.”

Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes

A key insight from a ongoing display is how it maps these clinical themes through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. Around 1985, the artist created a group of shaped canvases – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Yugoslav critics lumped them into the fashionable neo-geo movement. Yet, the actual inspiration was found subsequently, when cataloguing Schubert’s estate.

“I inquired, how are these shapes created?” recalls a friend. “She explained simply: they represent a human face.” The signature tones – known among associates as her personal red and blue – were identical tints employed to depict cervical arteries in medical texts in a manual for surgical anatomy employed throughout European medical schools. “The connection was that both colors surfaced simultaneously,” the explanation continues. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work.

Shifting to Natural Materials

Towards the end of the seventies and start of the eighties, Schubert’s practice took another turn. She initiated works using wood lashed with straps. She composed displays of skeletal fragments, flower parts, herbs and soot. Questioned about the move to natural substances, Schubert explained that art “was completely desiccated in the concept”. She felt an urge to break boundaries – to utilize genuinely perishable matter in reaction to a creatively arid landscape.

An artwork dating to 1979, One Hundred Roses, saw her strip a hundred roses of their petals. She braided the stems into round arrangements with the leaves and petals arranged inside. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, it still held its power – the floral elements now totally preserved yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” a viewer remarks. “The hue has endured.”

The Artist of Mystery

“I always want to be mysterious, not to reveal what I’m doing,” Schubert confided during one of her final conversations. Secrecy was her strategy. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She eradicated specific works, 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

Then came the 1990s, and the Yugoslav Wars. Violence reached Zagreb itself. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She pasted newspaper photographs and text directly on to board. She duplicated and expanded them. Then she painted over everything in acrylic – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|