Schnabel Will Be Twice Lauded

Julian Schnabel established himself as one of the leading painters of his generation in the late 1970s through his use of unconventional materials, varied painting surfaces, and inventive modes of construction. Sustaining that career at a high level for more than 40 years would be enough of a challenge for any artist.

It's fair to say that to couple that with a film career that spans almost 30 years and includes a best director Academy Award nomination, for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," puts him in a class by himself.    

Mr. Schnabel's career is to be the subject of two celebrations in August. "Julian Schnabel: Selected Works From Home," which features paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the artist's personal collection, will open at Guild Hall on Sunday. Guests at Guild Hall's summer gala will be able to preview the exhibition Friday night, and members can do so on Saturday,

The Sag Harbor Cinema is presenting another Schnabel show, a retrospective timed to run concurrently with Guild Hall's, called "Portrait of the Artist: Julian Schnabel and Film." It will open next Thursday at 6 p.m. with a sneak preview of a newly restored version of his first film, "Basquiat" (1996), which starred a 20-year-old Jeffrey Wright as the legendary painter. A question-and-answer session with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

The works on view at Guild Hall, made over the past 45 years, include an early wax painting, "Procession (for Jean Vigo)" from 1979; "Salinas Cruz," a 1984 painting on velvet; paintings on printed materials and tarpaulins, and multiple plate-paintings, which show the artist's various approaches to that material over decades.

"When we first started talking with Julian about this show, he invited us to his home in Montauk and took us around," said Melanie Crader, Guild Hall's director of visual arts and curator of the exhibition, during a conversation at the cultural center. "One of the things I love that he always says is that he lives among his work, but he also lives among other artists’ work."

Most of the works in the exhibition come from the artist's home in New York City, but there are several pieces from Montauk. "It’s work he’s chosen to keep and live among, and I think that’s what’s really special about it," said Ms. Crader. "It’s also really generous that he’s sharing this work with us."

Noting that Mr. Schnabel has been a constant in contemporary art discourse since his first show in 1979, she cited as one source of his "revolutionary force" the idea that "he has no hierarchy about painting or work. Whether it's content or materials, all of those things are in play. What I find fascinating is how much freedom that has given him. And I think you see that in his work."

According to Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and author of two books about Mr. Schnabel, "Emerging from an American artistic tradition that deliberately challenged reigning ideas of surface and form in paintings, since the late 1970s the artist has sought to transform the realities and possibilities of the medium: what a painting is, what it can be, and how it can be done."