Exhibitions

Julian Schnabel: Italy Through Its Trees

New York, United States

Landscape paintings reimagined through broken ceramics and heavy textures to capture the rugged spirit of the Italian countryside.

Installation view, Julian Schnabel:

Image credit

Installation view, Julian Schnabel: Italy Through Its Trees, Pace Gallery, New York © 2026 Julian Schnabel / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Meet the artist

ArtLovers Tip

Look closely at the Portrait of Italy Through Its Trees III to find the specific patterns on the ceramic shards—remnants of domestic life now serving as highlights on a branch.

Exhibition Highlights - What you'll see

Julian Schnabel returns to his iconic medium of smashed plates to interpret the verticality and light of the Italian landscape. By embedding fragments of ceramics into thick layers of oil and bondo, he transforms the traditional tree portrait into a tactile, three-dimensional exploration of memory and place.

You're watching massive aluminum panels where the sharp edges of white plates catch the gallery light, mimicking the dappled sun through a canopy. The scale is imposing, forcing you to step back to see the forest, then draw close to inspect the chaotic, beautiful debris that forms the image.

Worth the trip

  • Signature Style: Experience the famous plate-painting technique that defined Schnabel's career, applied here to the organic forms of Italian trees.
  • Materiality: See how industrial materials like bondo and aluminum create a rugged, modern dialogue with the delicate tradition of landscape painting.
  • Grand Scale: These works are designed to overwhelm the senses, offering a physical immersion into a forest reconstructed through found objects.

How to experience it

Walk slowly around the perimeter of the room to observe how the shadows cast by the broken plates shift as your perspective changes. These paintings are sculptural and require movement to be fully understood. Afterward, find a nearby park or garden to see how the natural world compares to Schnabel's fractured, heavy-set version of it.

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