Sperone

Julian Schnabel (b. 1951) is regarded throughout the world as one of the most important artists of our time. He burst onto the neo-expressionist art scene of the early 1980s with huge, arresting paintings on collaged shards of smashed plates, but is probably best known today as a successful filmmaker. His works combine oil painting and collage techniques, classical pictorial elements inspired by historical art, and neo-expressionist features. This volume provides a precise account of Julian Schnabel's artistic output over the last thirty years, describing the personality of a metamorphic and unpredictable artist and his bold, somewhat confrontational style reminiscent of the energy and daring of Picasso and Pollock. From the broken-plate paintings that brought him fame, to the recent, massively scaled Big Girls series, the artist's work is set in the context of his overall sensibility, becoming part of an ongoing pictorial diary of a life.