Julian Schnabel was born in New York City in 1951. In 1965 he moved with his family to Brownsville, Texas. He attended the University of Houston from 1969-73, receiving a BFA, and returned to New York to participate in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. In 1976-77, Schnabel traveled throughout Europe. While he was in Barcelona, he was particularly moved by the architecture of Antoni Gaudi. He returned in 1978, and that same year he made his first plate painting, The Patients and the Doctors.
Schnabel's work defies traditional categorization, culling distinct sources and disparate media engaging in material experimentation, negotiating the physicality of surface, and exploring the relationship between figuration and abstraction, and the contradiction between the pictorial and the physical. His practice has always embraced unconventional methods– from employing velvet as his canvas, to layering shattered shards of ceramic onto wooden supports – to explore the physical potentials of the pictorial surface in a non-hierarchical, Whitmanesque manner, drawn from personal narratives that span history and mythology while reflecting the artist’s interest in philosophy and contemporary thought and humor.
Schnabel’s paintings, sculptures, and works on paper have been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions around the world: Kuntsthalle, Basel, 1981; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1982; Tate Gallery, London, 1982; Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1987; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, 1987; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1987; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 1987; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1987; Cuartel del Carmen, Seville, 1988; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, 1989; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, 1989; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1989; Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1989; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1989; CAPC Musee D’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, 1989; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Monterrey, 1994; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1995; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, 1995; Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, 1996; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2004; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Palacio Velázquez, Madrid, 2004; Tabakalera, San Sebastián, 2007; Museum Kiasma, Helsinki, 2008; Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, 2009; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2010; Museo Correr, Piazza San Marco, Venice, 2011; The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, 2013; Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, 2014; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2014; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, 2014; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 2016, Legion of Honor Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2018, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2018, CAC Malaga, Malaga, 2022 and Guild Hall, East Hampton, 2024.
In 1996 Schnabel wrote and directed the feature film Basquiat about fellow New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film was in the official selection of the 1996 Venice Film Festival. Schnabel’s second film, Before Night Falls, based on the life of the late exiled Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas, won at the 2000 Venice Film Festival both the Grand Jury Prize and the Coppa Volpi for best actor, Javier Bardem, who was also nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. In 2007 Schnabel directed his third film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Schnabel received the award for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival as well as Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards, where the film won Best Film in a Foreign Language. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was nominated for four Oscars including Best Director. That same year, 2007, he made a film of Lou Reed’s Berlin concert at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Miral won the UNESCO as well as the UNICEF award at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. Miral was shown at the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations. At Eternity’s Gate premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, where Willem Dafoe won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor. Dafoe was then nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. Schnabel’s latest film In the Hand of Dante – starring Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Bulter, John Malkovich, and Jason Momoa – recently premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival where Schnabel received the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award.
Julian Schnabel currently lives and works in New York City and Montauk.
