Schnabel, Julian

Related Category: American Art: Biographies

shnä´bəl, 1951–, American artist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. He studied art at the Univ. of Houston and the Whitney Museum. A neoexpressionist, he became a superstar of the 1980s art world after his first one-man show in New York (1979). Schnabel is particularly noted for large paintings that incorporate broken crockery, e.g., The Walk Home (1985), and for other kinds of work that flout high-art conventions, such as paintings on velvet or linoleum. He has also executed a number of sculptures and is well known for his pronouncements on art. In the 1990s he branched out into writing and singing and also became a successful filmmaker, directing Basquiat (1996) and Before Night Falls (2000).

See his memoir, C.V.J.: Nicknames of Maitre D's and Other Exerpts from Life (1987).