Julian Schnabel

Julian Schnabel (b. 1951) is an American artist and filmmaker whose work played a central role in the resurgence of painting in the late twentieth century. Born in New York City and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Schnabel studied at the University of Houston, earning his BFA in 1973, before returning to New York to participate in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

In the late 1970s, Schnabel emerged as a leading figure in the Neo-Expressionist movement. A formative trip to Europe in 1978—particularly his encounter with the architecture of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona—helped shape his expansive, material-driven approach to painting. That same year, he created his first “plate painting,” incorporating broken ceramics into heavily worked surfaces that challenged traditional notions of the canvas. His first solo exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in 1979 established him as a major new voice in contemporary art.

Schnabel’s practice spans painting, sculpture, and works on paper, characterized by bold scale, unconventional materials, and a fusion of abstraction and figuration. His work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions internationally, including major presentations at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among many others.

In addition to his visual art, Schnabel has achieved critical acclaim as a filmmaker. His directorial debut, Basquiat (1996), was followed by Before Night Falls (2000), and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), for which he received the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe; the film was also nominated for four Academy Awards. His later films include Miral (2010), further demonstrating his engagement with narrative and visual storytelling.

Schnabel’s work is held in major museum collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. He lives and works in New York City and Montauk, Long Island.