Photo by Louise Kugelberg
Julian Schnabel was born in New York City in 1951. He attended the University of Houston from 1969 to 1973, receiving a BFA, and returned to New York to participate in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art and graduated from the program in 1974.
Since his first solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in 1976 his paintings, sculptures, and works on paper have been the subject of numerous exhibitions: Kunsthalle Basel, 1981; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1982; Tate Gallery, London, 1982; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1982; Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1986; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany, 1987; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1987; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987–1988; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1988; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1988; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, 1989; Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, France, 1989–1990; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, Munich, 1990; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1990; The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1990; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 1990; Maison Carré, Nîmes, 1990; Museo de Monterrey, Mexico, 1994; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 1995; Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy, 1996–1997; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2004; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2004; Palazzo Venezia, Rome, 2007; Schloss Derneburg, Germany, 2007; Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, 2009; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 2010–2011; Museo Correr, Venice, 2011; J.F. Willumsen Museum, Denmark, 2013; The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2013–2014; Dallas Contemporary, 2014; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2014; Dairy Art Centre, London, 2014; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 2015; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, 2016–2017; The Glass House, New Canaan, 2017; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 2018; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2018; ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, 2018.
In 2018 Schnabel was the first contemporary artist to select a group of paintings from the permanent collection to be shown with his paintings, Orsay through the Eyes of Julian Schnabel.
His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Tate Gallery, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, among others.
Julian Schnabel currently lives and works in New York City and Montauk, Long Island.