Julian Schnabel (Director) was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1951. At 15, he moved with his family to Brownsville, Texas. He attended the University of Houston, receiving a BFA, and returned to New York in 1973 to participate in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. In 1978 Schnabel made his first plate painting, “The Patients and the Doctors“. His first solo painting exhibition took place in 1979 at the Mary Boone Gallery, New York. Since then, Schnabel’s work has been exhibited all over the world. His paintings, sculptures and works on paper have been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Whitechapel Gallery, London; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Tate Gallery, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
In 1996, he wrote and directed the feature film “Basquiat,” about fellow New York artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Schnabel’s second film, “Before Night Falls,” won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival 2000 and earned Javier Bardem an Academy Award® nomination for best actor.
In 2004, a retrospective of Schnabel’s paintings took place at the Schirm Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Palacio Velazquez, Madrid; and Mostra d’Oltremare, Napoli. Recent exhibitions of Schnabel’s paintings and sculpture have taken place at the Palazzo Venezia, Rome; Schloss Derneburg, Derneburg, Germany; Rotonda della Besana, Milan; and Tabacalera, San Sebastian, Spain.