Painter and film director Julian Schnabel was born on October 26, 1951, in New York. He moved to Brownsville, Texas in 1965 and studied at the University of Houston from 1969 to 1973, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In February 1972, he held his first solo exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York. He depicted violence and death by gluing shards of plates and ceramics onto canvases. This work garnered attention, and he became a central figure in the 1980s Neo-Expressionism movement. In 1996, he made his directorial and screenplay debut with Basquiat, a film about the New York-based artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The all-star cast, including Jeffrey Wright, David Bowie, and Gary Oldman, drew much attention. His next film, Before Night Falls, in 2000, was based on the autobiography of the life of author Reynaldo Arenas and won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

In 2007, he released The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a film adaptation of the autobiography of Jean-Dominique Boby, the editor-in-chief of fashion magazine Elle. The film was highly acclaimed around the world and won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globe Awards.