Images & Texts

ANNIVERSARY ACQUISITION: IMPORTANT BRONZE SCULPTURE BY REMBRANDT BUGATTI AT THE STÄDEL

ACQUISITION OF THE “DEVOURING LION” FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALAIN DELON ON THE OCCASION OF THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STÄDELSCHER MUSEUMS-VEREIN

The Städelscher Museums-Verein is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a major acquisition: the bronze sculpture Devouring Lion by Rembrandt Bugatti (1884–1916). With this 1908 figure, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main has acquired a major work by the Italian artist and is now one of only two museums in Germany to be able to present its public with a bronze by this outstanding sculptor. The sculpture was purchased by the Städelscher Museums-Verein with funds from Volker Westerborg and private donations. The Devouring Lion previously belonged to the art collection of the actor Alain Delon, who owns one of the world's most important collections of works by Rembrandt Bugatti. Sculptures by the artist were last shown at the Städel Museum in 2020 in the special exhibition “En Passant. Impressionism in Sculpture”. On permanent loan from the patrons’ association, the anniversary acquisition is currently on view in the Städel Museum’s collection presentation of “Modern Art” and can be seen in the Impressionist Hall in dialogue with sculptures by Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin. The Städelscher Museums-Verein was founded on 27 June 1899, making it one of the oldest and largest patrons’ associations of a German museum today.

“Rembrandt Bugatti is one of the greatest sculptural talents in the history of art. By the time of his untimely death at the age of thirty-one, he had created an unparalleled oeuvre of some 300 sculptures, of which the Devouring Lion from the private collection of Alain Delon is one of the most important. As always, in a single working process of just a few hours, Bugatti translated the essence, appearance and tension of his model into a sculptural work that seems to break down and dissolve the boundaries between object and abstraction. The Devouring Lion is a milestone in early twentieth-century sculpture and an extraordinary addition to the Städel Museum. I congratulate the Städelscher Museums-Verein on this special anniversary acquisition. I would also like to thank Véronique Fromanger, Paris, and Edward Horswell, Sladmore Gallery, London, for their selfless support of this extraordinary acquisition”, says Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum.

“For 125 years, the Städelscher Museums-Verein has been supporting the Städel Museum with acquisitions to complement its collection, with the realisation of special exhibitions that attract the public, and with the financing of research and restoration projects. With the purchase of this outstanding sculpture by Rembrandt Bugatti on the occasion of our anniversary, we can once again confirm our mission of support. As chairwoman, I would like to thank our more than 10,000 members and art lovers from the bottom of my heart for their commitment. They are a prime example of what civic commitment to the Städel Museum can look like”, says Sylvia von Metzler, Chairwoman of the Städelscher Museums-Verein.

The acquisition was made possible in large part by a generous donation from Volker Westerborg (1940–2022) to both the Städel Museum and the Städelscher Museums-Verein. Westerborg’s support focussed on works by artists who lost their lives in the First World War and whose memory should serve as a reminder of the consequences of the war. Westerborg’s support had previously enabled the purchase of Wilhelm Morgner’s Astral Composition VI, 1912. With a major work by Rembrandt Bugatti, who committed suicide in 1916 under the impact of the First World War, the Städel Museum is once again honouring Westerborg’s patronage.

You can read the full press release here.

PRESS RELEASE

STÄDEL | WOMEN
WOMEN ARTISTS BETWEEN FRANKFURT AND PARIS AROUND 1900

10 JULY TO 27 OCTOBER 2024
Exhibition Annex

Modernism is unimaginable without the contribution of women artists. Not only well-known women painters and sculptors such as Louise Breslau, Ottilie W. Roederstein, and Marg Moll, but also many others successfully established themselves in the art world during the period around 1900—Erna Auerbach, Eugenie Bandell, Mathilde Battenberg, Marie Bertuch, Ida Gerhardi, Dora Hitz, Annie Stebler-Hopf, Elizabeth Nourse, and Louise Schmidt, to name just a few. In Paris and Frankfurt alike, they built international networks and supported one another. As influential teachers and art agents, some of them also shaped the history of the Städel Museum and Städelschule. It is time to dedicate a major exhibition to these women for the first time ever, and to discover them anew. From 10 July to 27 October 2024, the Städel Museum presents some 80 paintings and sculptures by altogether 26 women artists. Among them are significant artworks from renowned US and European museums and numerous works from private collections, which are exhibited for the first time. Previously unpublished archival materials accompany the works. Photographs and letters tell of international studio collectives, the strategic importance of professional artist associations, and successes, but also of continual efforts to gain recognition.

The exhibition features women artists who, with great independence and professionalism, asserted themselves in an art world dominated by male “artist geniuses”. From the perspective of their networks, a complex picture of women artists’ training and working circumstances in the modernist era emerges—from the struggles of the pioneers in 1880s Paris to the first female sculptors at the Städelschule (Städel art school) around 1900 to the self-determined young generation of women artists in the New Frankfurt of the 1920s and ’30s. Widely different stylistically, the works testify to the diversity of women’s artistic approaches, while also mirroring the radical social and aesthetic upheavals of the time. In their art the women painters and sculptors undertook critical investigations of their own existence as artists in a male-dominated environment. They self-confidently presented themselves in the circles of their female friends and companions and called traditional gender roles into question. By depicting the nude body, they also claimed their right to a motif complex previously reserved for men. In the process, they not only availed themselves of painting and drawing but also increasingly entered the territory of sculpture, which on account of its technical and material requirements and the physical strain it involved was considered the “most masculine” artistic medium.

Städel Museum director Philipp Demandt on the exhibition: “Käthe Kollwitz, Lotte Laserstein, Ottilie Roederstein: In recent years the Städel Museum has devoted major exhibitions to successful women artists. This summer we are presenting the Städel / Women to our public—26 modern women painters and sculptors in a single show. As the result of an extensive research project on the history of our institution and its collection, the Städel Museum has succeeded in reconstructing remarkable women artists’ biographies and locating lost works. We are thus closing gaps in the research while in turn opening doors for further study. This exhibition will fundamentally change our understanding of the situation of women artists around the turn of the last century and their influence on the development of modern art. I am deeply indebted to our lenders and sponsors, who once again have shown how essential their dedication is to the core aspects of our museum work.”

The exhibition curators Alexander Eiling, Eva-Maria Höllerer, and Aude-Line Schamschula: “Our exhibition concentrates on the artistic activities of women painters and sculptors between 1880 and the 1930s. We devote ourselves to three generations of women artists as well as the widely diverse interrelationships between the Frankfurt art world and the French art capital. Following a prologue exploring the circle of women artists around Ottilie Roederstein in Paris, the focus turns to the training situation for women at the Städel art school and Frankfurt’s new School of Arts and Crafts in the 1920s. We introduce these artists along with their individual achievements and highlight the widely branching networks with which they supported and encouraged one another. It is an exhibition about the self-empowerment of women artists who were no exception in their day.”

Curators, Städel Museum: Dr Alexander Eiling (Head of Modern Art), Eva-Maria Höllerer (Research Associate, Modern Art), Aude-Line Schamschula (Research Associate, Modern Art)

Supported by: Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain gGmbH, Damengesellschaft of the Städelscher Museums-Vereins e. V., Dr. Marschner Stiftung, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, CATRICE

Media Partner: FAZ
Cultural partner: hr2-kultur

The detailed press information can be found here.

Press Release
NEW HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTION

The Städel Museum has a new Head of its Collection of Contemporary Art: Svenja Grosser. At the Städel Museum since 2018, she has been responsible for the scholarly aspects of the collection as Deputy Head for the past three years and has curated numerous exhibitions—most recently “Victor Man. The Lines of Life” and “Ugo Rondinone. Sunrise. East.” Her research interests include contemporary painting, 20th and 21st century staged photography, museology, and gender theory. From 3 May 2024, she will present a new exhibition: “Muntean/Rosenblum. Mirror of Thoughts”.

“Since its foundation more than 200 years ago, the Städel Museum has continuously expanded its own collection, always with an eye to the respective artistic present. Today, art after 1945 with a focus on German painting in an international context can be experienced on more than 3,000 square metres in the Städel’s iconic Garden Halls. It is a particular pleasure for me to appoint Svenja Grosser as the new Head of the Contemporary Art Collection. She has distinguished herself through her outstanding expertise and her commitment to contemporary mediation. In future, she will continue to work intensively on the expansion of the collection and its public-orientated presentation”, comments Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum, on the appointment.

Svenja Grosser was born in Cologne in 1991 and studied Art History, German Philology, and Philosophy at the University of Bonn. She has been working at the Städel Museum since 2018. As project manager, she was jointly responsible for the new presentation of the Collection of Contemporary Art in 2020 and subsequently curated various exhibitions of contemporary artists, including Marc Brandenburg, Michael Müller, and Philipp Fürhofer. She has also written and edited numerous essays and publications to accompany these exhibitions. As co-initiator of the DigAMus Award-winning art and mediation space CLOSE UP and the digital application of the same name, Svenja Grosser is committed to a broad perception of and engagement with contemporary art. The event format “Städel Invites”, which she co-developed, offers the public the opportunity to meet contemporary artists and learn more about their motivations, ideas, and themes in dialogue. Grosser has already made several acquisitions for the Collection of Contemporary Art, including works by Louise Nevelson and Leiko Ikemura. She also regularly conceives thematic presentations of the collection within the permanent exhibition, placing works in new contexts.

“The Städel’s Collection of Contemporary Art is a place of inspiration and creativity for our visitors, as well as for me as head of the collection, which can provide answers to the questions of our time. In the coming years, I will be working on an exhibition programme with a feminist focus, as well as on thematic issues relating to contemporary painting and interventions across epochs. Current discourses and issues will be incorporated into the work with the collection, as will the wealth of knowledge gained from continuous observation of the contemporary art sector. I am delighted to have been appointed and to be able to continue to make this high-calibre collection accessible to a broad public,” emphasizes Svenja Grosser.

The detailed press information can be found here.

PRESS RELEASE

Muntean/Rosenblum. Mirror of Thoughts
Contemporary Art Collection
Press preview: Friday, 3 May 2024, 9.30 am

The two artists Markus Muntean (b. 1962) and Adi Rosenblum (b. 1962) have been working together since the 1990s. In their primarily painterly oeuvre, they impressively combine their identities to create one artistic signature. The Städel Museum is dedicating a solo exhibition in its Contemporary Art Collection to the artist duo, featuring a video work and eleven large-format paintings – including two new works – whose settings are places of transit: shopping centres, airport terminals, hotels, or offices. Immersed in their own thoughts, the young protagonists stare intently at their smartphones or gaze into the distance, are in motion or look out at the viewer with boredom or irritation. The work of Muntean/Rosenblum fluctuates between the influences of past art periods and contemporary pop-cultural phenomena. While their compositions are firmly anchored in the pictorial memory of art history, referencing well-known masterpieces from the Renaissance to Modernism, their figures are taken entirely from the present. They stem from an image archive established over many years, fed by photographs from lifestyle magazines, the Internet, and their own photo shoots. The artist duo uses this rich pool of images as a basis for creating peculiar scenes through the medium of painting: Set against anonymous urban backdrops, the dramatically arranged young people look like isolated extras in a contemporary stage play. Strange and at the same time familiar in their composition, the paintings reflect an atmosphere of lethargy and indifference. It is a painful yet liberating moment that marks the transition from adolescence to adulthood – a state of limbo. As if looking through a magnifying glass, Muntean/Rosenblum address central themes of our time: the ambivalence of human existence, the growing insecurity of the individual, and a pervasive sense of transience.

Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum: ‘With their interlinking of past and present, the works of the artist duo Muntean/Rosenblum fit perfectly into the Städel Museum’s collection, which spans more than 700 years of art. As a museum of pictures, we focus on painterly positions with regularly changing exhibitions in the Contemporary Art Collection and thus follow how painting expands, redefines itself, and breaks new ground across epochs. The art of Muntean/Rosenblum epitomises this borderline and tightrope walk of painting in contemporary art: drawing on photographs, they create surreal, collaged paintings at the interface between conceptual art and figurative genre painting.’

Svenja Grosser, Head of the Contemporary Art Collection and curator of the exhibition, adds: ‘Non-places underpin Muntean/Rosenblum’s working principle, which is primarily concerned with the possibilities of figurative painting. The artist duo’s decision to draw their motifs from an archive and to abandon their respective identities in favour of a joint signature already poses a challenge to painting, namely the lack of authorship. The concept of non-places is the logical extension of these considerations. As Muntean/Rosenblum take great care to deprive their works of a thematic statement, the viewer is challenged in his or her own perception: What does one want to see? How does one interpret the scene? What is real and what is not? The painting unfolds in this field of tension, between these poles, and is thus perhaps even closer to abstraction than to figuration.’

Curator: Svenja Grosser (Head of the Contemporary Art Collection, Städel Museum)
Project Coordinator: Maja Lisewski (assistant curator, Contemporary Art Collection, Städel Museum)

The detailed press information can be found here.

PRESS RELEASE

KOLLWITZ

20 MARCH TO 9 JUNE 2024
Exhibition annex

She was the most famous German woman artist of the twentieth century and nevertheless an exceptional phenomenon: Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945). This spring the Städel Museum is devoting a major exhibition to her with a focus on the versatility, modernity and explosive power of her oeuvre. As an artist, Kollwitz followed paths of her own: She devoted herself not to painting, but above all printmaking and drawing—a decision as bold as it was determined— and there found her way to an independent pictorial language distinguished by incisive immediacy. In the hope of influencing society with her art, she explored existential human questions from a new perspective, also addressing troublesome topics. Not least of all for that reason, the artist and her work were politically instrumentalized in Germany after 1945—a reception still impacting our collective conception of her to this day.

This complex history of Käthe Kollwitz’s public reception as well as the Städel Museum’s own extensive holdings, enhanced by works from leading museums and private collections, form the point of departure for the exhibition. More than 110 striking works on paper, sculptures, and early paintings by the artist will be on view, including outstanding loans from the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Sprengel Museum Hannover, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and elsewhere. These works will bear trenchant witness to Kollwitz’s decision in favour of graphic art as well as her nonconformity and love for experimentation. They will reveal the special nature of her themes, her formal vocabulary and her compositional dramaturgy. The show will moreover explore the charged relationship between aesthetics and politics in her oeuvre. Finally, an overview of how the artist was assessed on both sides of the inner-German border after 1945 will serve as a reflection on the power of cultural-political narratives.

Städel Museum director Philipp Demandt on the exhibition: “Apart from Käthe Kollwitz there is presumably no artist in Germany who attained as early and enduring a career with as much autonomy and determination. Her work made an impact as far afield as the U.S. and China—and was instrumentalized by many isms, both social and political, especially in post-war Germany. It accordingly appears all the more urgent to shed light on the German ‘Kollwitz myth’ and take an in-depth look at the lifework of this prominent woman artist of Classical Modernism. Especially our institution is called upon to undertake such a project: After all, the Städel Museum was already acquiring the art of Käthe Kollwitz during her lifetime, and since the purchase of the Goedeckemeyer Collection by the City of Frankfurt in 1964 has had a well-founded collection, above all of her works in the printmaking medium, to call its own. Awaiting our visitors this spring is an encounter with an artist whose oeuvre has lost nothing of its topicality to this day.”

Regina Freyberger, head of the Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings from 1800 and curator of the exhibition: “It is a huge challenge to remain completely unbiased because, consciously or unconsciously, we always carry our own conceptions and experiences with us. This is especially true with regard to an artist like Kollwitz who—thanks to school and street names, postage stamps and reproductions of her works—has been part of our everyday life for decades. That circumstance can easily obscure the fact that she was one of the most exceptional phenomena of Classical Modernist art. The work of Kollwitz is distinguished by unconventionality, a love for experimentation, and extraordinary persistence. Her refusal to produce art merely for her own sake led to her radical decision to work primarily in the graphic medium. She chose anti-bourgeois and ultimately also political issues and explored them artistically from new angles in an emphatic pictorial language that is today as gripping as ever. Like all great art, her art is timeless and timelessly relevant.”

Curator: Dr Regina Freyberger (Head of the Department of Prints and Drawings from 1800, Städel Museum)
Sponsored by: DZ BANK, Gemeinnützige Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain GmbH, Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V. with the Städelfreunde 1815
With additional support from: Georg und Franziska Speyer’sche Hochschulstiftung, Wolfgang Ratjen Stiftung, Aventis Foundation
Media partners: Süddeutsche Zeitung, ARTE, Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main

The detailed press information can be found here.

PRESS RELEASE
ANNIVERSARY BEQUEST: OUTSTANDING PRIVATE COLLECTION OF WORKS BY HONORÉ DAUMIER IN THE STÄDEL MUSEUM
SBEQUEST MARKS THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STÄDELSCHER MUSEUMS-VEREIN / HONORÉ DAUMIER. THE HELLWIG COLLECTION – EXHIBITION STARTS 24 JANUARY IN THE STÄDEL MUSEUM

Starting 24 January 2024, the Städel Museum presents an exhibition of works by the French artist Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) to mark the 125th anniversary of the Städelscher Museums-Verein. The works are part of the outstanding private collection belonging to the Frankfurt patron of the arts, Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, that constitutes one of the most distinguished collections of Daumier outside France. The collection comprises a total of 4,200 lithographs and wood engravings, 19 drawings, 2 paintings and 36 bronze sculptures – many of which have never been publicly exhibited. Mirroring the full scope of Honoré Daumier’s artistic oeuvre, the private collection impresses with its unique quality. With the Städel Museum’s presentation of a selection of around 120 works from the Hellwig Collection, these works will be on view to the general public for the first time. The collection is to be donated in its entirety to the Städelscher Museums-Verein as an anniversary bequest, which in turn will entrust it as a permanent loan to the Städel Museum, where the collection will be preserved, researched and presented.
Honoré Daumier was one of France’s greatest draughtsmen. As a keen observer and controversial contemporary critic, he made a name for himself in the political circles of 19-th-century Paris, primarily through his caricatures which he produced for the illustrated periodicals La Caricature and Le Charivari. Both feared and loved, Daumier became the conscience of an epoch marked by radical social and political upheaval and profound change. His commitment to republican and liberal ideas, to the press and freedom of speech, his fervent interest in modern innovations and his critical, but also profoundly human view of the conditions of his time are impressively manifested in the exhibited works. The exhibition in the Städel Museum is sponsored by the Städelscher Museums-Verein.

Director of the Städel Museum, Philipp Demandt, on the patron of the arts Hans-Jürgen Hellwig and on the significance of this bequest for the Städel Museum: “Hans-Jürgen Hellwig is a collector par excellence: passionate, persistent, enthusiastic and highly knowledgeable. We are delighted to present a selection of some 120 works from his outstanding Daumier collection here at the Städel Museum as our first exhibition of the new year. It is a show that offers sensual pleasure to all viewers, sharpens the mind and invites visitors to engage with the fundamental questions of our own time. As an anniversary gift to the Städelscher Museums-Verein and now on permanent loan to us, the Hellwig Collection is an invaluable addition to our own collection. As a result, the Städel Museum will permanently be established as one of the most significant centres of Daumier research in Germany. My heartfelt thanks go to Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, who through his work on the board of our museum’s association has for decades furthered the interests of the Städel Museum. With his exceptionally generous bequest, he has inscribed his name into the history of patronage for the Städel, which began with its founder Johann Friedrich Städel and has continued to this day in a variety of ways. It is through such commitment by the people of our city that this museum is sustained.”

The collector, Hans-Jürgen Hellwig, on the bequest: “A question that preoccupies many collectors is what will eventually become of their collection. For me, this question has never really arisen. In my more than sixty years of collecting, I have collected art for its own sake and not as an investment. And during the over half a century that I have been living in Frankfurt, I have personally incorporated the great tradition of this place: that its citizens see the cultural and social institutions of their city not only as a public responsibility, but also as their own. Margret Stuffmann, former Head of the Prints and Drawings Collection at the Städel Museum, accompanied me as a private collector with her expertise in 19th century French art. For considerable time, I had seen Honoré Daumier only as a caricaturist of political events. It was she who opened my eyes to the artist Daumier: to his artistic qualities, which lie in every single lithograph; to the spectrum of his work, which encompasses all themes of human existence; and to his rich knowledge of history and art. So it is also in gratitude for this that my collection is being passed on to the Städel Museum – as a bequest in my lifetime to the Städelscher Museums-Verein.”

Sylvia von Metzler, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V. on the anniversary and the bequest: “This year, the Städelscher Museums-Verein is celebrating its 125th anniversary, hence also 125 years of commitment to the Städel Museum by Frankfurt’s citizens. Since its foundation on 27 June 1899, our first concern as a museum association has been to facilitate the Städel Museum in consolidating and expanding its collection – and, in addition, in important research projects or large-scale special exhibitions. For over thirty years, our board member Hans-Jürgen Hellwig has rendered outstanding services to the Städelscher Museums-Verein: with the commitment he has shown both to Frankfurt and to the Städel Museum, he continues to emphasise the value of individual civic engagement for the cohesion of society. We owe this exhibition and, above all, this unique bequest to his generosity. His impressive Daumier collection will now become the property of the Städelscher Museums-Verein Foundation on the occasion of our association’s anniversary, to be housed and preserved in the Städel Museum. A truly splendid occasion to celebrate!”

You can download the complete press release as a PDF here.

PRESS RELEASE

2024 EXHIBITION PREVIEW

ONE-OF-A-KIND WORKS BY HONORÉ DAUMIER FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, A MAJOR KOLLWITZ EXHIBITION STARTING IN MARCH, CONTEMPORARY ART BY MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM, SUMMER WITH THE STÄDEL / WOMEN, EXCEPTIONAL PORTRAIT ART BY REMBRANDT AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES, ITALIAN BAROQUE DRAWINGS DURING THE BOOK FAIR, PORTRAIT PHOTOS BY RINEKE DIJKSTRA

Titles and exhibition dates are subject to change.

You can find the complete press release as PDF here.

PRESS RELEASE

1 DECEMBER 2023 TO 14 APRIL 2024
Contemporary Art Collection

The Romanian-German artist Miron Schmückle (b. in Sibiu/Hermannstadt in 1966) is among the singular protagonists of contemporary art. Growing up in Romania under Ceaușescu, already as a child he dreamt himself away to other worlds—worlds that, on the far side of the Iron Curtain, seemed forever inaccessible. From an early age, he took a keen interest in art history on the one hand and the flora and fauna of faraway places on the other. Together they led to a uniquely coherent oeuvre. From 1 December 2023 to 14 April 2024, the Städel Museum is presenting a solo exhibition featuring 28 works by Miron Schmückle, including newly executed works never before on view to the public.

Associated with the idea of the jungle or primeval forest from the outset, Schmückle’s visual cosmos oscillates between fine-painterly hyperrealism and undisguised escapism, between the precise observation of nature and an exuberant imagination. The virtually botanical approach of his depictions belies the fact that his complex creations originate not in nature but in fantasy. Based on his understanding and observations of nature with its widely differing colours, forms, and surface textures, they bear a relation to florilegia and exhibit similarities to Renaissance and Baroque plant and still-life painting of the kind once collected in cabinets of art and curiosities.

With the series Cosmic Attractors (2023) carried out especially for the exhibition Flesh for Fantasy, the artist invites the visitors to partake of the spatial and temporal complexity of his floral figments of the imagination, which in his conception are three-dimensional. By arranging different large-scale views and visual manifestations of one and the same plant composition in space, he creates an installation in which viewers can literally witness the plants’ growth.

Curator: Dr Philipp Demandt (Director, Städel Museum)

Download the complete press release here.

PRESS RELEASE

HOLBEIN AND THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NORTH

2 NOVEMBER 2023 TO 18 FEBRUARY 2024
Exhibition annex
Press preview: Tuesday, 31 October 2023, 11.00 am

It was a turning point in the history of art: Renaissance painting. What had begun in Italy developed into something completely new in Northern Europe in the works of the painters Hans Holbein the Elder (ca. 1464–1524) and Hans Burgkmair (1473–1531), pioneers of this singular art. Its centre was the free imperial and mercantile city of Augsburg, which became the capital of a German—but also an international—Renaissance within just a few decades. None other than Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), one of the German Renaissance’s greatest painters, would ultimately make this art known throughout Europe. From 2 November 2023 to 18 February 2024, the Städel Museum is devoting an exhibition to this fascinating art-historical epoch. For the first time, it will bring together the most important paintings, drawings and prints of Holbein the Elder and Burgkmair in a presentation further enhanced by works of other Augsburg artists of the period from around 1480 to 1530 as well as prominent works by their colleagues active elsewhere in Germany and in Italy and the Netherlands. Masters such as Albrecht Dürer, Donatello, Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes had a lasting impact on the art of Holbein the Elder and Burgkmair. Uniting some 180 important works from leading international museum collections, the show will offer an overview of the various stylistic particularities of Northern Renaissance painting. A highlight of the Frankfurt show will be the presentation of the two masterworks by Hans Holbein the Younger: The Madonna of Mayor Jacob Meyer zum Hasen (1526–1528) from the Würth Collection and the Solothurn Madonna (1522) from the Kunstmuseum Solothurn.
 
Städel director Philipp Demandt on the exhibition: “The Städel Museum is prized far and wide for its major Old Masters exhibitions. After Rubens, Rembrandt and Reni, it now holds yet another exceptional show in store for the public. The Städel Museum is presenting the Renaissance in the North—a new and entirely unique style of painting that originated more than 500 years ago in the North of Europe at the threshold from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period. We are celebrating the great German painters of the Renaissance and their forerunners in an exhibition featuring some 180 prominent artworks from the world’s leading museum collections. Famous paintings by Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Burgkmair and Holbein the Younger will enter into dialogue with examples by Albrecht Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Donatello and many others. One of the show’s key objects will be the Madonna by Holbein the Younger from the Würth Collection, a painting regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the German Renaissance. Its presentation along with the Madonna from the Kunstmuseum Solothurn in Frankfurt is a chance not to be missed.”

“Around 1500, Augsburg was one of the leading art centres north of the Alps. Among the artists of this period, the colleagues and rivals Holbein the Elder and Burgkmair the Elder were especially prominent. Representing the range of stylistic possibilities encompassed by Northern Renaissance painting, their works would come to influence entire generations of later artists, as we see in the paintings of Holbein the Younger. His exploration of the art of Augsburg was groundbreaking to a degree strikingly mirrored in his early work. In less than ten years, Holbein the Younger developed an unmistakable style of his own and thus attained his rank as one of the sixteenth century’s most prominent European artists”, explains Jochen Sander, curator of the exhibition, Deputy Director and Head of the Collection of German, Dutch and Flemish Art before 1800 at the Städel Museum.

CURATOR STÄDEL MUSEUM: Prof Dr Jochen Sander (Städel Museum, Deputy Director and Head of the Collection of German, Dutch and Flemish Painting before 1800)
EXHIBITION DATES 2 November 2023 to 18 February 2024
PRESS PREVIEW: Tuesday, 31 October 2023, 11.00 am
SPONSORED BY: Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe mit Deutsche Leasing AG, Frankfurter Sparkasse & Sparkassen-Kulturfonds des Deutschen Sparkassen- & Giroverbandes; Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V., Dagmar-Westberg-Stiftung

The detailed press information can be found here.

PRESS RELEASE
14 OCTOBER 2023 TO 4 FEBRUARY 2024
Old Masters Collection
Press Preview: Friday, 13 October 2023, 9.30 am

The Romanian artist Victor Man (*1974) has for years been considered one of the most sought-after and at the same time rarest protagonists of contemporary art. His intimate paintings, which seem to have fallen out of time, elude immediate interpretation. In the midst of the Old Masters Collection, the Städel Museum presents an exhibition from 14 October 2023 to 4 February 2024, featuring twenty works by the painter from the last ten years, dedicated to his artistic focus: portraits. In deep dark green, blue, and black, Man creates portraits as sensitive as they are enigmatic, dominated by an existentialist, sombre, and introspective tone. Subtle influences of the pre-Renaissance, dense with metaphors, emerge in his melancholic imagery. Stylistically complex and difficult to categorize, his inimitable oeuvre reveals numerous art historical references while at the same time representing a unique position in contemporary painting. At the Städel Museum, a fascinating dialogue between history and the present emerges.

The title of the exhibition, The Lines of Life, is a quote from Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem To Zimmer (1812) and refers to Victor Man’s close connection to poetry and literature. These references, as well as connections to his own life reality, are repeatedly found in his painting – for example, the individuals depicted in the portraits in the main part of the exhibition come from his family environment and circle of friends. Immersed in predominantly dark scenarios and with a contemplative gaze, the sitters are enveloped in existential heaviness. The paintings bear witness to an intense exploration of human existence and speak of the poetic as well as tragic ambivalence of life. In the second part of the exhibition, the genre of portraiture is continued and at the same time deconstructed with the series The Chandler (since 2013). Victor Man presents the same motif in various paintings, always in a slightly different form – a seated figure with a head on its lap – and invites us to explore our own perception. The Städel Museum brings together all the works from this series, which has rarely been seen in its entirety – including the latest work, which has never been shown before.

“As a museum of pictures, the Städel is the perfect place for the first institutional solo exhibition of Victor Man’s works in Germany in almost a decade. Man’s oeuvre is committed to painting. Surrounded by the collection, which spans 700 years, his paintings open a dialogue anchored in the richness of art history. The quiet and timeless portraits appear as an antithesis to our highly technological and complex living environment. Let us see them as an invitation to embark on a quest for the essence of our own existence”, says Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum.

Svenja Grosser, curator of the exhibition, further elaborates: “Victor Man’s work is timeless, and his paintings thus resist art-historical classification according to criteria such as style, date of execution, or even the period to which they belong. Multi-layered references from art history and literature also open up a wide range of possible interpretations. However, one thing is always at the center: Victor Man’s entire oeuvre revolves around painting itself and its inherent possibilities to put us as viewers to the test.”

Curator: Svenja Grosser (Deputy Head of the Collection of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum)
Project Coordinator: Maja Lisewski (assistant curator, Collection of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum)
The exhibition is supported by: Deutsche Bank, Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.

Download the complete press release here.