Julian Schnabel, a painter, sculptor and director was born in New York City in 1951. Schnabel studied at the University of Houston, Texas, from 1969 to 1973. Schnabel was intensively engaged in European painting. His first individual exhibition was at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston in 1976. In the same year Schnabel traveled to Paris and Milan. His first exhibition in Europe took place in Dusseldorf in 1977. In 1983 Schnabel began to work on sculptors. In the 90s the artist also became famous as a screenplay writer and director of the movies "Basquiat" (1996) and "Before Night Falls" (2000). In Venice the artist was awarded the "Große Preis der Jury" (Grand Prize of the Jury) for his last big movie.