This coming Sunday, the 15th of March 2015; marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Städel Museum. Germany’s oldest civic museum foundation is observing the historic day with a grand public celebration. Under the motto “200 Years Städel: A Gift for Everyone”, a comprehensive programme of guided tours, workshops and chamber music performed by the hr-Sinfonieorchester will await the visitor. In the time-tested tradition of Johann Friedrich Städel’s foundation vision, the Frankfurt museum is sustained by broad patronage on all levels, and this anniversary year is no exception. On the occasion of the bicentennial, for example, citizens have made donations to the Städel amounting to several millions of euros, agreed to sponsor exhibition rooms, and started their own fundraising initiatives for the civic museum. What is more, after donations of works Jusepe de Ribera, Guido Reni, Edgar Degas und Philip Guston, just within the past weeks the Städel has received further birthday gifts, among them prominent works by Bettina von Arnim, Eugène Carrière, Bruno Goller, Karl Hofer, Mike Kelley, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Albert Oehlen and Moritz von Schwind, but also, not least importantly, rare photographs by the Bisson brothers, Helmar Lerski and others, as well as vintage prints by Horst P. Horst.