Städel Sammlung - 700 Jahre Kunst unter einem Dach

In the organizer's words:

From the Middle Ages to the present day: the Städel Museum's permanent exhibition takes you on a journey through more than 700 years of art. On more than 15,000 square meters, you can be inspired by paintings and sculptures, photographs, drawings and prints. Discover the permanent exhibition on site and even more art in our digital collection online.

Old Masters

European painting from 1300 to 1800: the oldest works of art are still deeply rooted in the Christian religious world of the Middle Ages.

At the beginning of the Renaissance, the focus shifted to the real world of humanistically educated people. The increasingly emotional depictions up to the Baroque period proved to be charged with complex content.

Modern art

In the period from 1800 to 1945, European societies underwent rapid developments that were in no way inferior to those in the visual arts.

Questions were raised and controversial debates arose: Should or may art be beautiful? Does it serve a cause? What role does religion play? Despite the many discourses, one thing is clear: Art is being given more space in people's hearts and minds than ever before.

Contemporary art

Contemporary art at the Städel spans the period from 1945 to the present day.

This period brings together a large number of very different art movements, which position themselves towards or against each other in ever shorter periods of time. The collection reveals far-reaching interrelationships across decades, schools, isms and groupings.

Prints and Drawings Collection

The Städel's Prints and Drawings Collection comprises around 100,000 drawings and prints from the late Middle Ages to the present day and is one of the most important collections of its kind in Germany.

The holdings date back to Johann Friedrich Städel (1728-1816) and were expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries by important connoisseurs such as Johann David Passavant (1787-1861) and Georg Swarzenski (1876-1957). Highlights of the collection are the excellent Old Master holdings from before 1800, the Nazarene drawings, the French drawings and prints of the 19th century, the works of Expressionism and the US-American art after 1945.

Photography

Shortly after the invention of photography in 1839, the medium found its way into the Städel Museum:

In addition to reproductions of works of art from all over the world, cityscapes, everyday scenes and landscape views were part of the teaching collection for students at the art school affiliated with the museum. Over the decades, photography not only developed technically.

Photography has many faces, it is reproduction, documentation, staging, imprint, advertising, art and much more. From a utility medium, it has increasingly become an individual art form that has set and continues to set new aesthetic standards. Photography fundamentally changed viewing habits and still interacts with painting today. The Städel Museum's photography collection reflects this development. It is a dynamically growing area and today comprises over 5,000 works from the beginnings of the medium to the present day.