Julian Schnabel was born in New in 1951, studied at the University of Houston in Texas from 1969-1973 and began his immensely successfull career 1973 after participating in the "Whitney Independent Study Program". During this time he got in contact with key figures of the New York art scene: the protagonists of performance art, conceptual art and minimal art, but he was more interested in the tradition of European painting. He had his break-through as a "superstar"of New Painting at the beginning of the eigthies. He became especially famous for his oversized "plate paintings" that were compositions of the most diverse materials, and colors. His oeuvre is still dominated by painting and his work negates any kind of stylistic categorisation into work groups or media, as he is combining very different materials, like oil, wood, wax, cotton and all kinds of "objets trouvés" as fragments of history. He creates an interplay of figurative and abstract motives, strong and weak colors, details and big gestures. In the nineties he was also an acclaimed film producer, director and screenwriter.