‘I had to plunge the knife into the canvas’: The artist 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 was employed by the Department of Anatomy at the Zagreb University’s faculty of medicine, precisely illustrating dissected human bodies for textbooks for surgeons. In her private atelier, she produced art that eluded all labels – often using the very same tools.

“She created these highly accurate, technical drawings which were used in surgical handbooks,” says 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, comments a exhibition curator, are still published in handbooks for medical students to this day in Croatia.

The Bleeding of Two Worlds

Having two professional lives was not uncommon for artists from Yugoslavia, who seldom could rely on art sales. 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.

An Artistic Restlessness

During the beginning of the 1970s, Schubert was still working within the confines of traditional painting. She crafted precise, ultra-realistic arrangements in acrylic and oil paints of confectionery and condiment containers. Yet, irritation had been festering since her training. During her time at the Zagreb art school, the curriculum mandated life drawing. “I was compelled to stab the knife through the fabric, it truly frustrated me, that stretched surface I was forced to communicate upon,” she once explained to a scholar, among the rare individuals she spoke with. “I thrust the blade into the painting in place of a brush.”

The Act of Dissection Becomes Art

In 1977, that urge took literal form. She made eleven big pieces. Each was coated in a single shade of blue then using an anatomical scalpel and making hundreds of deliberate, precise cuts. Afterwards, she peeled back the severed canvas to reveal its reverse, fashioning artworks catalogued with scientific detail. Marking each with a date highlighted their status as performances. In one 1977 series of photographs, entitled Self-Portrait Behind a Perforated Canvas, she inserted her features, hair, and digits through the openings, turning her own body into artistic material.

“Absolutely, my work possesses a dissective quality … dissection like an evening nude,” the artist replied when asked about their meaning. For a close friend and scholar, this statement was illuminating – a glimpse into the mind of an elusive figure.

Separate Careers, Intertwined Roots

Art commentators in Croatia often viewed Schubert’s two lives as entirely separate: the radical innovator in one corner, the medical illustrator who paid the bills on the other. “I have always believed that these two identities were profoundly intertwined,” explains a confidant. “You can’t work for 35 years in the Institute of Anatomy 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 how it traces these medical undercurrents through works that, at first glance, seem entirely abstract. Around 1985, Schubert produced a series of geometric paintings – trapezoidal forms, as they were later termed. Art writers grouped them with the popular geometric abstraction trend. Yet, the actual inspiration was found subsequently, when cataloguing Schubert’s estate.

“I asked her, how do you produce the trapeziums?” states an associate. “Her response was straightforward: it's a human face.” The distinctive hues – termed “Schubert red” and “Schubert blue” by peers – matched the precise colors she’d been using to illustrate the two main arteries of the neck within a reference book for surgeons used across European medical faculties. “The connection was that both colors surfaced simultaneously,” the narrative adds. The angular paintings were actually abstracted human forms – executed alongside her daily technical illustration work.

A Turn Towards the Organic

In the late 70s and early 80s, the artist's work shifted direction again. She started making assemblages from twigs secured with hide. 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 utilize genuinely perishable matter in reaction to a creatively arid landscape.

One work from 1979, 100 Roses, featured her denuding a century of flowers. She wove the stems into circles on the ground placing the foliage and petals within. Upon being viewed while organizing a show, it still held its power – the organic matter now fully desiccated yet astonishingly whole. “The aroma remains,” one observer marvels. “The pigmentation survives.”

The Artist of Mystery

“My aim is to remain enigmatic, to conceal my process,” the artist shared in late-life discussions. Mystery was her method. On occasion, she displayed counterfeit pieces stashing authentic works out of sight. She eliminated select sketches, only retaining signed reproductions. Despite exhibiting at major international biennales and receiving acclaim as an innovator, she gave almost no interviews and her output stayed mostly obscure internationally. A present retrospective marks her first significant external showcase.

Confronting the Violence of War

Subsequently, the nineties dawned with the outbreak of conflict. Violence reached Zagreb itself. She reacted with a collection of assembled pieces. She glued journalistic imagery and type onto surfaces. She photocopied and enlarged 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|