Images & Texts

Press Release GUIDO RENI. The Divine 23 NOVEMBER 2022 TO 5 MARCH 2023

Exhibition annex Press Preview: Tuesday, 22 November 2022, 11 am

With a large-scale exhibition opening to the public on 23 November 2022, the Städel Museum is rediscovering the former star painter of the Italian Baroque: Guido Reni (1575–1642). In his day, Reni was one of the most successful and celebrated painters in all of Europe, coveted by the most important patrons, including the Borghese Pope Paul V, the Duke of Mantua, and the Queen of England. Hardly appreciated in the nineteenth century due to other aesthetic preferences and later relegated to second place by the one-sided concentration on his temporary rival Caravaggio, he no longer holds the place he deserves in the public consciousness.

For the first time in over thirty years, the Städel Museum, in cooperation with the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, is bringing together more than 130 of his fascinating paintings, drawings, and prints and thus offering a new perspective on Guido Reni. The painter was deeply religious and also superstitious, tremendously successful and hopelessly addicted to gambling, as one contemporary biography authoritatively informs us. Even during his lifetime, Reni was given the honourable epithet Il divino (“The Divine”) – this refers to his fame as an artist star who, aware of his skills, occasionally behaved like a diva. However, “The Divine” also refers to his themes: Reni is the painter of the divine par excellence. He had a profound effect on the religious iconography of European art and, like no-one else before or since, gave visual form to the beauty of the divine – be it the Christian kingdom of heaven or the world of the ancient gods. The enormous impact of his art is reflected in the countless variations of his depictions of the heads of Christ and Mary, with their upturned faces and heavenward gaze, reproductions of which still circulate widely today as picture pull-outs in Roman Catholic prayer books. Indeed, this unparalleled imitative reception history only served to tarnish Reni’s image, obscuring the actual qualities and other fascinating aspects of his art.

Curator: Dr Bastian Eclercy (Head of Italian, French and Spanish Paintings before 1800, Städel Museum) Project coordinator: Aleksandra Rentzsch (Research Assistant in Italian, French and Spanish Paintings before 1800, Städel Museum)

Download the complete press release here.

PRESS RELEASE
NEW HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PRINTS AND DRAWINGS TO 1800 AT THE STÄDEL MUSEUM
DR. ASTRID REUTER TO COME TO FRANKFURT FROM THE STAATLICHE KUNSTHALLE KARLSRUHE ON 1 NOVEMBER 2022

The Städel Museum has a new head of its Department of Prints and Drawings to 1800. The art historian Dr. Astrid Reuter will come to Frankfurt from Karlsruhe on 1 November 2022. Dr. Reuter’s research expertise lies primarily in the area of French and German drawing and printmaking from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Further focusses of her work are women artists and the history of collections as well as media history. Dr. Reuter is the author of numerous publications and scholarly articles. She will succeed Dr. Martin Sonnabend, who will retire as co-head of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the end of September.

“The Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings has superb old master holdings at its disposal. We are very fortunate that Astrid Reuter will soon join us as the new co-head of the collection. In this position she will oversee the scholarly research into the holdings as well as their audience-oriented presentation. In Astrid Reuter, the Städel Museum is gaining an extremely experienced art historian whose museum and exhibition practice goes back more than two decades. I greatly look forward to welcoming her to the Städel Museum on 1 November”, says Städel Museum director Philipp Demandt about the new addition to the staff.

Opening hours of the Study Room of the Department of Prints and Drawings: Wed, Fri 2.00–5.00pm, Thu 2.00–7.00pm. Please book in advance by e-mail to graphischesammlung@staedelmuseum.de, stating the date, arrival time, and length of your stay.

PRESS RELEASE
MICHAEL MÜLLER: THE GIVEN DAY. CASTOR & POLYDEUCES
EXTENDED UNTIL 23 APRIL 2023

Collection of Contemporary Art

From 14 October 2022 to 23 April 2023 the Städel Museum is presenting a solo exhibition by German-British artist Michael Anthony Müller (born 1970). In three exhibition sections, the artist takes visitors into the mythological world of Ancient Greece with an expansive installation, drawings, paintings, and a sculpture. The piece The Given Day (2021–2022), based on the Ancient Greek myth of the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Polydeuces, form the heart of the exhibition. In battle, the inseparable brothers are divided by the death of Castor, a mortal. Zeus grants the two brothers a shared life – a life between the worlds. Henceforth the brothers alternate between a day spent in Hades, the realm of the dead, and a day on Olympus amongst the gods. A prologue consisting of Müller’s drawings and a sculpture interacts with works on paper from the Städel Museum collection to familiarize visitors with the myth. With his site-specific piece The Given Day, Müller also has different concepts of time enter into dialogue: Firstly, there is the physical notion of time, which allows for a subdivision of time segments into objective units; secondly, there is human-existential time, which evades such a strict subdivision. The work measures a total of 6 × 65 metres and is made up of 24 large-format canvases. They symbolize the 24 hours of the day, and Müller painted each exclusively at the hour of the day for which the respective canvas stands. The exhibition culminates in the garden halls, where Müller presents further groups of works and quite literally accompanies the visitors into the “underworld”.
By means of painting, but while also going beyond its boundaries, in the Städel Museum Müller thus presents a multi-faceted artistic reflection on the meaning of time, mortality, and love that endures outside time. In the process, he weighs up the potential of abstraction and asks the crucial question: Can an abstract artwork tell a story?

“The audience of the Städel Museum is invited to immerse themselves in Michael Müller’s pictorial world. His paintings present a contemplative, almost meditative way of working that includes thinking about the way the works evolve and highlighting that process. With the Michael Müller solo exhibition, the Städel Museum is presenting an artist who, in his most recent works, reflects on the significance and boundaries of painting in the 21st century,” comments Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum.

Svenja Grosser, curator of the exhibition, elaborates on this: “Ostensible opposites such as day and night, death and life, reality and abstraction, image and copy not only get juxtaposed to each other in Michael Müller’s works, but brought together on the canvas. Here, cultural and historical conditions play a role, as does exploring the reach of painting, something that is an elementary part of Müller’s conceptual approach.”

Curator: Svenja Grosser (Deputy Head of the Collection of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum)

PRESSE NFORMATION

THE NEW STÄDEL GARDEN

NEW PRESENTATION OF THE SCULPTURES / FURTHER ENERGY-SAVING CONSTRUCTION MEASURES COMPLETED / VISITORS’ TERRACE PLANNED ON THE ROOF OF THE MUSEUM

From now on the newly installed Städel Garden, the Städel Museum’s most prominent collection space, invites visitors to discover outstanding works of modern and contemporary art. A total of fourteen sculptures from the museum’s own holdings are presented – the most recent acquisition, Si par une nuit d’hiver un voyageur (2017) by Elmgreen & Dragset, can be seen for the first time. In a new setting, the selection of artworks ranging from August Gaul’s The Donkey Rider (1912) and Georg Kolbe’s Proclamation (1912/1913) to Reg Butler’s Figure in Space (1958/1959), Per Kirkeby’s Gate II (1987–1991), and Tobias Rehberger’s Capri Moon (2011) shed light on the development of sculpture over the last 100 years. Access to the Städel Garden is free of charge.

The new presentation of the sculptures was realized on the basis of a design by the landscape architects Levin Monsigny, who are known for their major project, the Museum Island Berlin. Various structural measures were implemented in the Städel Garden on an area of approximately 5,200 m²: The sculptures are now placed on their own sandstone plinths in dedicated fields planted with ivy and white flowers. In front of the main entrance of the Städel Museum, a large forecourt has been created as a central meeting place for visitors. Around the entire museum building, the ground level was raised and paved with Mayen basalt lava. In addition, energy-saving, climate-friendly LED lighting was installed on the historic Main embankment façade, which had already been lavishly restored and fitted with new windows in 2019. Seating groups, chairs, and benches are available to relax in the new Städel Garden.

To save drinking water, two cisterns were built to collect rainwater for watering the garden’s green areas. In the course of this, the drainage systems were also renewed. In addition, a barrier-free entrance with a lift system was installed at the museum’s main entrance, which now allows visitors with limited mobility to reach the Städel quickly and centrally. The next project will be the construction of a visitors’ terrace on the roof of the Städel Museum, starting at the end of August. Completion is scheduled for the summer of 2023. Both building projects were designed by the architects schneider+schumacher, who were also responsible for the Städel Museum’s extension, the Garden Halls for the Collection of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2012.

PRESS RELEASE
SELF. DETERMINED: THE PAINTER OTTILIE W. ROEDERSTEIN
20 JULY TO 16 OCTOBER 2022

Exhibition annex

The German-Swiss painter Ottilie W. Roederstein (1859–1937) was one of the outstanding women artists of the period around 1900. This summer the Städel Museum will present a comprehensive retrospective featuring 75 paintings and drawings that will provide an overview of the artistic development of a painter distinguished by her stylistic versatility. From 1891 onwards, after training in Zurich, Berlin, and Paris, Roederstein lived in Frankfurt am Main. In 1909, she and her partner, the gynaecologist Elisabeth H. Winterhalter, settled in the neighbouring town of Hofheim am Taunus. As a free-lance portraitist, Roederstein was firmly established in the male-dominated art world and self-confidently disregarded the prevailing social norms of her time. Her works were shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad—from Frankfurt, Zurich, and Paris to London and Chicago—, gaining her wide recognition among her contemporaries. Yet despite her extensive exhibition activities and onetime renown, the painter has all but fallen into oblivion.

Roederstein’s work is closely intertwined with the history of the Städel Museum and the city of Frankfurt. Her studio in the Städel School was just a few steps away from the museum, which she visited regularly, its collection being an important source of inspiration for her art. Her own works already entered the Städel holdings during her lifetime. In 1902, the museum acquired its first work ever by a contemporary female artist: Roederstein’s painting Old Woman Reading. The exhibition accordingly builds on the Städel Museum collection which, meanwhile comprising 28 works by the artist, represents one of the most important Roederstein holdings apart from those of the Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus and the Kunsthaus Zürich.

Curators: Dr Alexander Eiling (Head of Modern Art, Städel Museum), Eva-Maria Höllerer (Research Assistant, Modern Art, Städel Museum)
Archive: Dr Iris Schmeisser (Head of Provenance Research and the Historical Archive, Städel Museum)
Sponsored by: Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain GmbH
With support from: Friede Springer Stiftung, Ernst Max von Grunelius Stiftung, Damengesellschaft des Städelschen Museums-Vereins
The Roederstein-Jughenn Archive is being indexed with support from: Rudolf-August Oetker-Stiftung, Damengesellschaft des Städelschen Museums-Vereins, and a private donor
Media partner: Frankfurter Rundschau
Cultural partner: hr2-kultur

Download the complete press release here.

PRESS RELEASE
SHIFTING POINTS OF VIEW. SEEING DIFFERENTLY. UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER

Knowing what is, what has been, and what might come, forming opinions, and engaging in debate and discourse in order to foster a lively democratic culture is at the heart of a major cultural education initiative by the Städel Museum titled Shifting Points of View. Seeing Differently. Understanding One Another. Building on the understanding that a museum is a place for diverse social aspects of life, for years the Städel Museum has been developing audience-oriented art education that reflects the times. Shifting Points of View is intended to support thinking and acting in a way that promotes democracy. It allows historical developments and processes that have shaped the social value system of freedom and democracy to be impressively retraced through active engagement with artworks at the Städel Museum. The works in the collection from 1300 to the present encompass a wide range of subject matter, telling stories that include topics such as globalisation, resistance, utopia, emancipation, power, oppression, and populism.

“The museum is a place for both art and debate. Larger political and social correlations can always be found in art. The Städel Museum – a civic institution rooted in the tradition of humanism – demonstrates with the education initiative Shifting Points of View that the ability to judge history can be trained and strengthened by engaging with art. Yesterday can tell us a great deal about today. It enables us to stay alert and face life’s realities by forming our own informed opinions and points of view”, explains Philipp Demandt, Director of the Städel Museum.

“What shapes our points of view, and how are these opinions reflected in art? Learning to read and interpret images, talk about them, discuss them together, and ultimately better understand the social developments and phenomena of our time underlies the educational approach behind Shifting Points of View. We see art as a medium to promote democratic discourse. The development of skills in the areas of interculturality and multi-perspectivity, as well as responsible handling of the flood of information and images in the digital age, are also fundamental to the aims of our education initiative”, explains Chantal Eschenfelder, head of Education and the Digital Collection, Städel Museum.

Within the framework of the education initiative Shifting Points of View an ever-expanding art education programme will be created, consisting of various new formats targeted to a broad audience, such as discursive guided tours, digital offers, practical art seminars and workshops, and specific continuing and advanced training courses. Themes and content that promote democracy are already being addressed in numerous current outreach offers, including online tours, CLOSE UP, the Städel podcast “Blinded by Rembrandt”, Digitorials®, and the training materials used during Education Week. Encountering and engaging with art fosters cultural participation and empowers viewers to help actively shape a diverse democratic society. With Shifting Points of View, the Städel Museum is also explicitly addressing day-care centres, schools, and adult education institutions.

SHIFTING POINTS OF VIEW. SEEING DIFFERENTLY. UNDERSTANDING ONE ANOTHER
Project Management: Dr Chantal Eschenfelder (Head of Education and the Digital Collection, Städel Museum)
Projektkoordination: Anne Dribbisch (Research Assistant, Department of Education, Städel Museum)
Sponsored by: Dr Harald Hack Stiftung
Individually mentioned education offers are supported by: Frankfurter Volksbank, Fazit-Stiftung and Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.

Download the complete press release here.

PRESS RELEASE
RESEARCHING RENI – A NEW SHINE FOR GUIDO RENI’S MASTERPIECE
LIVE EVENT WITH RESEARCH INSIGHTS INTO THE CONSERVATION OF GUIDO RENI’S MASTERPIECE “CHRIST AT THE COLUMN” ON 12 JULY 2022
PARTNERSHIP WITH BANK OF AMERICA’S ART CONSERVATION PROJECT

One of the most celebrated artworks by the Italian Baroque painter Guido Reni (1575–1642) is currently in conservation at the Städel Museum. Christ at the Column (c. 1604) is a masterpiece by the star painter of the 17th century. The conservation is made possible through the support of funding through Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project. The conservation work sees the removal of old varnish from the painting along with retouching and overpainting that has taken place over the years.

The masterpiece will be presented to the public in a major exhibition dedicated to the rediscovery of the artist, at the Städel Museum in autumn 2022. Prior to that, the curator and the conservation department will be providing insight into the history of the artwork and the conservation process in an online presentation on Tuesday, 12 July 2022 at 4 pm CET. The online event will be broadcast live from the museum’s conservation department to the Städel’s YouTube-channel.

Download the complete press release here.

Wall texts
SELF. DETERMINED: THE PAINTER OTTILIE W. ROEDERSTEIN
20 JULY TO 16 OCTOBER 2022

Introduction
The German-Swiss painter Ottilie W. Roederstein (1859–1937) was one of the outstanding women artists of the period around 1900. She was firmly established in the male-dominated art world and gained recognition for her work in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Roederstein produced a multifaceted oeuvre mirroring many of the stylistic trends of early modernism in art: from academic painting to symbolist and impressionist means of expression to a reductive, objective approach. She never ventured into the realm of abstraction, however, but remained indebted to reality as her model. As a freelance artist, Roederstein deliberately disregarded the societal norms of her time, which left women no scope for personal or professional development. The self-portraits she executed in great number throughout her long career testify to her critical stance on traditional gender roles. From 1891 onwards, after training in Zurich, Berlin, and Paris, Roederstein lived with her partner, the physician Elisabeth Winterhalter, in Frankfurt am Main. The painter was well connected in local artist circles and cultivated extensive contact to many leading Frankfurt families whose members she portrayed prolifically. Roederstein’s work is closely intertwined with the history of the Städel Museum and the city of Frankfurt. Her studio in the Städelsche Kunstschule was just a few steps away from the museum, which she visited regularly, its collection being an important source of inspiration for her art. In 1909, Roederstein and Winterhalter moved to the neighbouring town of Hofheim am Taunus. There, towards the end of her career, the painter was able to devote herself to new artistic experiments in her own studio building and found her way to her ‘eigene Handschrift’, as she called it: her own personal style. The exhibition retraces Roederstein’s stylistic development and her exceptional and successful career.

Press release

Into the New. Being Human: From Pollock to Bourgeois
6 APRIL TO 17 JULY 2022

Exhibition Hall of the Department of Prints and Drawings

After more than twenty-five years, the Städel Museum is once again dedicating an exhibition to American art on paper from 1945 to the present. From 6 April to 17 July 2022, some fifty outstanding prints, drawings, and multiples by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman, Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Kiki Smith, or Kara Walker will be presented, all of which deal with the theme of being human.

American art of the past eighty years is full of boundary crossings and contradictions. It is as unconventional as it is multifaceted: Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Concept Art, Minimal and Performance Art. In a relatively short period of time after 1945, various and at times contradictory aesthetic concepts developed in New York and (later) on the West Coast. Artists chose their media and materials freely and strategically – depending on the message they wanted to convey. Printmaking played a key role in this context. As a laboratory for experimentation in form and content alike, it offered artists new possibilities. From the 1960s onward, this went hand in hand with the founding of new printing and paper workshops. Artists collaborated closely with these workshops to produce technically sophisticated prints and objects (multiples), often in self-confidently large formats. This printmaking revolution went down in art history as the ‘Graphic Boom’.

Under the influence of ever-new political, economic, and societal upheavals and crises, many of the works revolve around human existence itself. Naturalistic depictions of the human figure now give way to the sign-like and abstract, the incomplete, the imprint, the blank space. Artists reflect on human perception and experience as fragmentary and question language as an instrument for describing the world.

Download the complete press release here.

PRESS RELASE

RENOIR. ROCOCO REVIVAL.
IMPRESSIONISM AND THE FRENCH ART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
2 MARCH TO 19 JUNE 2022

Exhibition Annex

Pierre-Auguste Renoir is one of the outstanding painters of French Impressionism – and far more than that. From 2 March to 19 July 2022, for the first time the Städel Museum will be addressing the surprising references in his art to Rococo painting in a large-scale special exhibition. Whereas Rococo painting was considered frivolous and immoral after the French Revolution, it underwent a revival in the nineteenth century and was widely visible in Renoir’s lifetime. Having trained as a porcelain painter, he was also intimately acquainted with the imagery of artists such as Antoine Watteau, Baptiste Siméon Chardin, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. He shared the Rococo’s predilection for certain subjects, among them promenaders in the park and on the riverbank, moments of repose in the outdoors, and the garden party. Renoir also frequently devoted himself to the depiction of domestic scenes and family life as well as intimate moments such as bathing, reading or making music. Yet he not only took orientation from the motifs of the Rococo, but also particularly admired its loose and sketchy manner of painting as well as its brilliant palette, aspects that would have a formative influence on him and many other artists in the Impressionist circle.

The exhibition at the Städel presents the complex history of the Rococo’s reception in nineteenth-century France. Trenchant juxtapositions of Renoir’s art with works of the eighteenth century as well as his own contemporaries – Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot – will provide an overview of Impressionism’s intense artistic examination of the Rococo.

Curatorial team: Dr Alexander Eiling (Head of Modern Art, Städel Museum), Dr Juliane Betz (Deputy Head of Modern Art, Städel Museum), Dr Fabienne Ruppen (Research Assistant, Modern Art, Städel Museum)
Sponsored by: Savings Banks Finance Group with Deutsche Leasing AG, Frankfurter Sparkasse and Savings Banks Cultural Fund of the German Savings Banks Association, the Städelsche Museums-Verein e.V. with the STÄDELFREUNDE 1815, Dagmar-Westberg-Stiftung

Download the complete press release here.