Painful loss

Valuable graphic work by Picasso sank in the flood

The flood also caused massive damage to antiques and art expert Josef Renz. A Russian avant-garde artist and a Picasso (right) are also lost.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Imre Antal (Personenbild), 2x Josef Renz (Gemälde))

A heavy loss for the entire cultural world: the flood destroyed 1000 works of art at the home of patron Josef Renz in Kreisbach in the district of St. Pölten - including a Spanish master.

With his own dedication and even more knowledge of art created with brushes and oil paints, the well-known "hunter of lost treasures" Josef Renz had put together a collection of more than 1000 valuable paintings, engravings, posters, lithographs and graphics that was unique in Austria.

For a small eternity on earth, our house had been firmly rooted here, undamaged, in its native soil.

Josef Renz

"I have carefully and also professionally archived all these works by many famous masters who had created this power of their divine talents over the centuries in my antiques center in Kreisbach near Wilhelmsburg," assures Renz. However, like many other victims of the disaster, he was surprised by the sudden elemental force of the water in his instructions. "Our house had been rooted firmly and undamaged in its native soil for a small eternity on earth," says the art expert, still shaking his head in disbelief.

Fuchs, Hutter, Dalí 
Among the works of art that have been destroyed or are now at least unrestorable due to the damp are works by well-known local painters such as Ernst Fuchs and Wolfgang Hutter. But Salvador Dalí and Russian avant-gardists such as Sergey Poliakoff are also represented. There are also posters from the turn of the century.

Loss of ideas weighs much heavier
What hurts Renz the most: a signed work by the famous Pablo Picasso was also a victim of the dirty-brown sloshing floods. "The material damage runs into hundreds of thousands, but the non-material loss for the art world is much more serious. In any case, the losses are irreparable for them," laments the dazzling collector, who also lost his wine cellar with its exquisite wines to the flood.

Although he was still able to salvage individual bottles, the labels of the ancient bouteilles were washed away, rendering them almost worthless. Josef Renz was also saddened by the fact that falling trees severely damaged his mountain property.