Edita Schubert was a woman with two lives. By day, she meticulously drew dissected human bodies for surgical textbooks at the University of Zagreb's medical faculty. Her precise and technical illustrations were used in medical textbooks, including those still published today in Croatia. Meanwhile, by night, she created art that defied categorization, often using the same tools she used to draw cadavers.
Schubert's dual vocation was not unusual for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. However, her transition from medical illustration to avant-garde art marked a significant turning point in her career. In the early 1970s, Schubert began creating still lifes and experimenting with new techniques, but it wasn't until the late 1970s that she started to push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in Croatian art.
In 1977, Schubert produced a series of large canvases with blue monochrome backgrounds, which she then sliced into hundreds of precise cuts. The resulting artworks were documented with forensic precision, and each one was dated to underscore their status as actions and performances. This work marked a significant shift in Schubert's career, as it moved away from traditional techniques and towards a more experimental approach.
Throughout her career, Schubert remained elusive and enigmatic. She rarely gave interviews, and her work often seemed mysterious and ambiguous. However, those who knew her, such as art historian Leonida Kovač, were able to gain insight into her artistic process and motivations. For Kovač, Schubert's artworks were a reflection of her inner world, a world that was both deeply personal and universally relatable.
Schubert's final works reflected a growing sense of resistance to the medical gaze that had dominated her career for so long. Diagnosed with colon cancer in 1997, she created Biography – five groups of glass test tubes filled with photographs spanning her childhood, travels, artworks, anatomical drawings from medical manuals, and self-portraits titled Phony Smile, showing her hairless from treatment. Her last installation, Horizons (2000), invited viewers to step inside circular panoramas of places she loved.
These final works felt like a protest against being medicalised – a prolongation of her life and memories beyond the clinical gaze she'd spent decades wielding herself. After years of anatomising others, Schubert refused to be reduced to a medical case. She declined further treatment, fully aware of the consequences.
Today, Schubert's work is finally gaining recognition outside Croatia, thanks in part to the Muzeum Susch exhibition. The show charts her confrontation with different kinds of violence – from the wars that ravaged Yugoslavia to the internalized violence of cancer treatment. As we walk through the exhibition's 12 galleries, we encounter multiple artists, each one representing a distinct period in Schubert's career.
Perhaps this was exactly how Schubert wanted it – a series of radical shifts occurring every few years, reflecting her growth and evolution as an artist. Even now, decades after her death, she remains elusive, leaving us to ponder the mysteries of her artistic process and the secrets that lie behind those enigmatic smiles.
Schubert's dual vocation was not unusual for Yugoslav artists, who rarely had access to a commercial art market. However, her transition from medical illustration to avant-garde art marked a significant turning point in her career. In the early 1970s, Schubert began creating still lifes and experimenting with new techniques, but it wasn't until the late 1970s that she started to push the boundaries of what was considered acceptable in Croatian art.
In 1977, Schubert produced a series of large canvases with blue monochrome backgrounds, which she then sliced into hundreds of precise cuts. The resulting artworks were documented with forensic precision, and each one was dated to underscore their status as actions and performances. This work marked a significant shift in Schubert's career, as it moved away from traditional techniques and towards a more experimental approach.
Throughout her career, Schubert remained elusive and enigmatic. She rarely gave interviews, and her work often seemed mysterious and ambiguous. However, those who knew her, such as art historian Leonida Kovač, were able to gain insight into her artistic process and motivations. For Kovač, Schubert's artworks were a reflection of her inner world, a world that was both deeply personal and universally relatable.
Schubert's final works reflected a growing sense of resistance to the medical gaze that had dominated her career for so long. Diagnosed with colon cancer in 1997, she created Biography – five groups of glass test tubes filled with photographs spanning her childhood, travels, artworks, anatomical drawings from medical manuals, and self-portraits titled Phony Smile, showing her hairless from treatment. Her last installation, Horizons (2000), invited viewers to step inside circular panoramas of places she loved.
These final works felt like a protest against being medicalised – a prolongation of her life and memories beyond the clinical gaze she'd spent decades wielding herself. After years of anatomising others, Schubert refused to be reduced to a medical case. She declined further treatment, fully aware of the consequences.
Today, Schubert's work is finally gaining recognition outside Croatia, thanks in part to the Muzeum Susch exhibition. The show charts her confrontation with different kinds of violence – from the wars that ravaged Yugoslavia to the internalized violence of cancer treatment. As we walk through the exhibition's 12 galleries, we encounter multiple artists, each one representing a distinct period in Schubert's career.
Perhaps this was exactly how Schubert wanted it – a series of radical shifts occurring every few years, reflecting her growth and evolution as an artist. Even now, decades after her death, she remains elusive, leaving us to ponder the mysteries of her artistic process and the secrets that lie behind those enigmatic smiles.
I think its so cool that Edita Schubert had this double life - like a secret superhero 
. I mean, who else can say they've got skills for both surgery and art? 
Its crazy to think she went from drawing dead bodies to creating art that was all about life and emotions... and it just goes to show that you dont have to be limited by what people expect of you 
.
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