Spearheading an irreverent return to painting, Schnabel precipitously came to fame in the late 1970s as much for his daring and immediate artworks as for his swaggering bravado; a breakthrough 1979 solo exhibition at Mary Boone Gallery, his first ever, marked his swift arrival as a fully formed artistic force and cemented his status as a leading figure on the illustrious New York art scene of the 1980s.
“I don’t think the battle between figuration and abstraction is even an issue. Anything can be a model for a painting – a poplar tree, another painting, a smudge of dirt.”
– Julian Schnabel
Since then, Schnabel has produced artworks at a rapid pace in a vertiginous diversity of styles; despite his formal range, however, Schnabel’s work is united by its embrace of chance, imposing physicality, and convention-breaking use of material. While painting has been the constant drive throughout Schnabel’s career, he has also pursued filmmaking, design, and architecture with great success, receiving such awards as Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globes for his 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.