ART: Missing Vukovar Museum Art Collection Found in Serbia

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Adrian Brown

BELGRADE, Feb 21 1995 (IPS) - A valuable art collection taken from the shattered Croat town of Vukovar has been traced to a museum in Serbia with help from a noted European art expert.

Art expert Hans-Christoph von Imhoff visited Serbia last week on a ‘fact finding mission’ for the Council of Europe parliamentary committee on culture and education.

His task was to discover the whereabouts and condition of collections taken from the Vukovar museum during the 1991 fighting in Croatia. Von Imhoff was delighted to discover the most important missing artefacts, the Bauer Fine Art Collection, named after a wealthy Croatian art collector.

This rare series of 19th and 20th century paintings by Croat artists disappeared in December 1991, a month after the town fell to Serb forces. A ferocious artillery barrage lasting 80 days had devastated the place.

The bulk of the Vukovar museum complex was gutted in the Serb- led Yugoslav army onslaught. “If you look at the buildings in central Vukovar there was not much of a chance for historic material to survive,” the consultant said.

Much of Vukovar was destroyed in the blitz — one of the major clashes of the war — including the building that housed the collection. That building is now a parking lot.

The Croats had attempted to hide the paintings prior to the war, which broke out in June 1991, by stashing them in Vukovar’s 19th Century Franciscan monastery. They were quickly uncovered by the conquering troops. Shortly afterwards they were removed to Novi Sad in neighbouring Serbia.

Recent visitors to the city report that the Fransiscan monastery is now a disfigured husk. Its roof is pitted with huge shell holes. Rubble and glass are strewn across the floor and some religious monuments have been ripped off the monastery walls.

Along with the Bauer Collection, the Novi Sad museum in Serbia was also found to be storing a number of other exhibits including artefacts of cultural history and several hundred archeological items taken from Croatia.

Von Imhoff said hundreds of archeological objects had been preserved and were stored in 750 cardboard boxes in the Serbian muuseum.

Of the Bauer collection itself, Von Imhoff was shown some 2,000 pieces by Serb authorities in Novi Sad. This corresponded with estimates of the display provided by Croat experts who met with Von Imhoff last December. However, “it would take two years of work to establish what was missing,” he said. (MORE)

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