Who

A New York art world fixture since the 1980s, Schnabel is as well known for his relentless self-promotion as for his work as a painter, conceptual artist, and filmmaker.

Backstory

Schnabel grew up in Brooklyn, decamped to Brownsville, Texas during his teenage years, and earned a B.F.A. from the University of Houston. In the '70s he returned to New York, where he worked as a cook and a cabbie to support his budding art career. Schnabel's early paintings, giant canvasses that incorporated pieces of fiberglass and broken crockery, first made a splash in 1979 when gallerist Mary Boone gave him his first solo show. But it was a 1981 show backed by Boone and Leo Castelli that truly clinched Schnabel's superstardom in the industry (and gave him a superstar-worthy ego to boot). One of the most visible personalities on the downtown art scene in the '80s, Schnabel caroused with the Brat Pack crowd (Jay McInerney, Bret Easton Ellis) as well as fellow art stars like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, all the while promoting himself relentlessly. But Schnabel's career took a dramatic turn downward when tastes shifted in the early 1990s. His work was increasingly viewed as symbolic of the excess of the '80s art market and demand cooled sharply.

Of note

With his painting career on the wane, Schnabel turned to film in his late forties, making his directorial debut with 1996's Basquiat, followed by 2000's Before Night Falls. His most recent auteurial outing was 2007's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the story of the paralyzed editor of French Elle who wrote a book despite his inability to move any part of his body except his eyelid; the film netted Schnabel a Best Director award at Cannes and earned rave reviews from critics. But he hasn't entirely abandoned his roots. He continues to work on canvas and has even managed to recapture some of the cachet he enjoyed in the early '80s. He had a major exhibition of his paintings at Larry Gagosian's galleries in New York and LA in 2002, and plenty of art bigs collect his work like good friends Aby Rosen and Peter Brant.

On the side

Schnabel made his first high-profile foray into interior design in 2006: Hotelier (and longtime pal) Ian Schrager tapped the artist to craft the look of the Gramercy Park Hotel, which he swathed in deep red velvet, dark wood, Moroccan tile, and his own artwork, naturally.

Personal

Schnabel's first wife was shoe designer Jacqueline Schnabel. They had three children together: Lola, an artist who's dated Viggo Mortenson and played muse to Zac Posen; Stella, a New York social fixture; and Vito, a budding art dealer who recently established himself as the "It" Schnabel child by becoming romantically entangled with '90s supermodel Elle Macpherson, who is 23 years his senior. Julian's second wife, the Spanish-born Olatz, worked as a model and actress (she had a role in Before Night Falls) before opening up West Village luxury linen shop Olatz in 2004. Julian and Olatz have two kids together, Cy and Olmo.

Habitat

Schnabel lives in Palazzo Chupi, a flamboyant, much-discussed 11-story building on West 11th Street. As it was being constructed, the building aroused the ire of Andrew Berman's Greenwich Village Society for History Preservation, because it's substantially taller than the other buildings in the neighborhood and because it's blazingly pink. Schnabel owns supplemental abodes in Spain (near Olatz's family) and Montauk.