Julian Schnabel was born on 26th October, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York in the United States. He was a painter who focused on the neo-expressionist styles besides being a biopics film maker. His career was an unusual journey. His experiences as a cook inspired him to integrate broken plates in his painting. This led to his fame in the 1980s. Nonetheless, his foray into film making and his career in that space is what honed his strength. The onset of this line of business was with the biopic of a friend, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The culmination of this vocation was at the Cannes Film Festival where he won an award as Best Director for his biopic Le scaphandre et Ie papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in 2007. This was the adaption of the bestseller journal by a journalist who was paralyzed and who communicated with the blink of one eye. Schnabel was one among the 1980s most infamous painters during the art boom. He grew to be a prominent person in the neoexpressionist movement. His artistic style incorporated the use of text, velvet, broken plates, former theater backdrops and tarpaulin. His brushstrokes were energetic and physical. In his work, he mixed images, words and from time to time crockery in particularly major paintings made with raw emotion and brutal energy on an assortment of facades that... show more

Julian Schnabel was born on 26th October, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York in the United States. He was a painter who focused on the neo-expressionist styles besides being a biopics film maker. His career was an unusual journey. His experiences as a cook inspired him to integrate broken plates in his painting. This led to his fame in the 1980s. Nonetheless, his foray into film making and his career in that space is what honed his strength. The onset of this line of business was with the biopic of a friend, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The culmination of this vocation was at the Cannes Film Festival where he won an award as Best Director for his biopic Le scaphandre et Ie papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) in 2007. This was the adaption of the bestseller journal by a journalist who was paralyzed and who communicated with the blink of one eye. Schnabel was one among the 1980s most infamous painters during the art boom. He grew to be a prominent person in the neoexpressionist movement. His artistic style incorporated the use of text, velvet, broken plates, former theater backdrops and tarpaulin. His brushstrokes were energetic and physical. In his work, he mixed images, words and from time to time crockery in particularly major paintings made with raw emotion and brutal energy on an assortment of facades that include former theater backdrops. His spectacular rise, celebrity status and soaring auction prices however, led to a serious criticism. Robert Hughes is quoted to have written: "Schnabel is to painting, what Stallone is to acting - a lurching display of Oily pectorals except that Schnabel makes bigger public claims for himself.” A characteristic of Schnabel’s film is storytelling in lyrical form and the employment of visual metaphors. In his first biopic, Basquiat, produced in 1996, hr hired David Bowie who played Andy Warhol. He used the imagery of surfing to portray the metaphor of the rise and fall of Basquiat. The reaction to this was mixed. Next, he produced the biopic Before Night Falls in 2000 about Reinaldo Arenas, the Cuban poet. This film had better reviews. It went on to the Venice Film Festival and won the Grand Special Jury Prize. Schnabel continues to be an artist, painting with ardent zeal for the means and its history. Julian Schnabel’s works of art include: Owl created in 1980 part of the collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California, U.S.; Homo Painting created in 1981 part of the Tate Collection, London, England; The Student of Prague created in 1983 part of the collection at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S.; Carine Near Armenia created in 1984 part of the collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, U.S.; Basquiat produced in 1996 (Film); Before Night Falls produced in 2000 (Film); Large Girl with No Eyes created in 2001 part of a private collection; Lescaphandre et Iepapillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) produced in 2007 (Film).
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