Franz Trenk

Franz Trenk (born January 29, 1899 in Graz , † September 1, 1960 ) was an Austrian industrial and landscape painter .

Life

Education

Franz Trenk studied painting at the Graz State Art School with Alfred Zoff (1852–1927) and Anton Marussig (1868–1925) and at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts with Karl Sterrer (1885–1972).

During his studies he became a member of the Academic Gymnastics Association Graz (ATV).

Interwar period

In the interwar period , oil painting was his preferred technique. The thematic focus was on the landscape ( Alps , Mediterranean Sea ). In his strongest pictures he approached the expressive power and density of Alfons Walde, for example . For these achievements he was honored with two Austrian state awards and two gold state medals.

Second World War

In the Second World War, Franz Trenk was as a war painter used. Since that time he has devoted himself almost exclusively to the technique of watercolors and thus followed the tradition of important Styrian landscape painting . Atmospheric pictures of the Scandinavian and French Atlantic coast , of Paris , Oslo and Athens were created during the war . Graz, Styria , the Austrian Alps and the landscape of the countries he traveled ( Italy , Germany , France, the Netherlands ) provided him with the motifs for watercolors of strong optical intensity in the following years.

post war period

Franz Trenk became known to a larger audience as the pictorial chronicler of the economic miracle of the 1950s. Numerous industrial companies as well as the public invited him to document the reconstruction and the latest technological achievements. By developing a dynamic visual language, he was able to adequately capture this unusual subject. His watercolors are historical pictorial documents of technology and industry and express the optimistic mood of this time.

Franz Trenk died on September 1, 1960 at the age of 61. After his death, a street in Graz was named after him.

Works (selection)

• The destroyed Army Museum after the air raid on September 10, 1944 , 1944, gouache on paper, Army History Museum , Vienna.

literature

• Fuchs Heinrich: The Austrian painters born in 1881–1900. Volume 2. Vienna 1977, p. K125.
• Gudrun Danzer, Helga Sueti (ed.): Franz Trenk, painter of landscape and industry. New gallery at the Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz, Leykam Graz 1999, ISBN 3-7011-7401-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Franz Trenk in the catalog of the German National Library