Julian Schnabel

(American, born 1951)

Julian Schnabel is a painter and filmmaker known as an integral member of the American Neo-Expressionists along with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Eric Fischl. Schnabel’s gestural application of paint on massive canvases, use of unconventional materials such as broken plates, and representation of human figure are hallmarks of his most famous works. “My paintings take up room, they make a stand. People will always react to that,” he said of his work. “Some people get inspired, others get offended. But, that's good. I like that.” Born on October 26, 1951 in Brooklyn, NY, Schnabel participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in the late 1970s, after which his public persona and popularity grew. The artist turned to feature-filmmaking in the 1990s with his film Basquiat (1996), an intimate fictionalized account of the life of his late friend. Schnabel went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for Before Night Falls (2000) at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). He currently lives and works between New York, NY and Montauk, NY. The artist’s works are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others.