JULIAN SCHNABEL

Painter and Filmmaker Julian Charles Schnabel was born on October 26, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, as the youngest of three children. His father was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia and his mother was from New York. In 1965 his family moved to Brownsville, Texas, a small Gulf Coast town on the Mexican border. In 1973 he earned a BFA from the University of Houston and was accepted to the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. His multidisciplinary practice extends beyond painting to include sculpture, film, architecture and furniture. His use of preexisting materials not traditionally used in art making, varied painting surfaces and inventive modes of construction were pivotal in the reemergence of painting in the United States in the late 1970’s and the rest of the world. In 1978, he began to make Plate Paintings, works with sculptural surfaces produced by layering shards of broken dishes with thick applications of auto body putty, dental plaster and oil paint on wooden structures. His unorthodox, highly experimental approach to use of materials, gestures and form and large scale and shaped paintings have blurred the distinction between abstraction and figuration, making the battle between the two obsolete. Throughout his practice, he sustained the use of objet trouvé and chance-based processes, transforming painting and opening the door for new generations of young painters today.