‘I had to plunge the knife 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 late Croatian artist worked at the Institute of Anatomy at the medical school of the University of Zagreb, meticulously drawing human anatomical specimens for surgical textbooks. In her private atelier, she created work that defied simple classification – frequently employing the identical instruments.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in surgical handbooks,” says a organizer of a fresh exhibition of Schubert’s work. “She was right in the middle of that practice … She showed no hesitation in the presence of dissections.” These detailed anatomical studies, observes a exhibition curator, are still featured in manuals for anatomy students currently in Croatia.

Where Two Realms Converged

A split career path was not rare for creatives in the former Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. But the way these two worlds bled into each other was. The medical knives for anatomical dissection became instruments for slicing canvas. The medical tape meant for wound dressing held her perforated artworks together. Glass vials usually meant for scientific specimens became vessels for her autobiography.

A Creative Urge

At the start of the seventies, Schubert was still creating within the limits of classic art. Her work included detailed, photorealistic compositions in paints and mediums of confectionery and salt and sugar shakers. But frustration had been building since her student days. During her time at the Zagreb art school, she was required to depict nude figures. “I had to plunge the knife into the canvas, it simply got on my nerves, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she confided in a researcher, one of the few people she ever granted an interview. “I stabbed the knife into the canvas instead of the brush.”

Where Anatomical Practice Meets Creation

By 1977, this impulse manifested physically. The artist created eleven sizable paintings. She painted each one a blue monochrome prior to picking up a surgical blade and performing countless measured, exact slices. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas 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, 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.

Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots

Croatian critics have tended to treat her twin professions as wholly divided: the experimental avant garde artist on one side, the technical draftsman funding her life in the other. “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 early morning to mid-afternoon without being affected by the surroundings.”

Anatomical Echoes in Geometric Shapes

What makes a current exhibition particularly revelatory is how it traces these medical undercurrents in pieces that initially appear purely non-representational. Around 1985, she made a collection of angular works – geometric shapes, subsequently labeled. 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?” remembers a scholar. “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 in a manual for surgical anatomy used across European medical faculties. “I realised that those two colours appeared at the same time,” the explanation continues. The geometric abstractions were, in fact, highly stylised human bodies – painted while she worked on anatomical illustrations by day.

Embracing Ephemeral Elements

During the transition into the 1980s, Schubert’s practice took another turn. 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.

A 1979 piece entitled 100 Roses, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She braided the stems into round arrangements with the leaves and petals arranged inside. When observed in a curatorial context, the piece retained its potency – the floral elements now totally preserved though wonderfully undamaged. “The scent of roses persists,” one observer marvels. “The colour is still there.”

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. Mystery was her method. At times, she showed inauthentic creations stashing authentic works out of sight. She destroyed certain drawings, leaving only signed photocopies in their place. Although she participated in global art events and receiving acclaim as an innovator, she granted virtually no press access and her output stayed mostly obscure internationally. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.

Confronting the Violence of War

The 1990s arrived, bringing the Yugoslav Wars. Hostilities impacted the capital directly. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She duplicated and expanded them. Then she obscured the surface with paint – rectangular forms reminiscent of scanning lines. {Geometric forms obscured the images beneath|Angular shapes hid the pictures below|