About the
Städel Museum

Experiencing art, making new discoveries, coming together, learning: the Städel Museum is a place of encounter, exchange and the exploration of our past, present and future. 

It collects, preserves and studies works spanning 700 years of art and teaches the public about them. With its programme and digital offers, it provides unique access to art across generations, epochs and styles—quite in keeping with the vision of its founder Johann Friedrich Städel. It is a space that stimulates our senses and puts us in touch with important questions. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Art has inspiring answers to offer. The Städel Museum is a private foundation sustained to this day by the generous support of citizens, foundations and business enterprises of the city and region.

As stipulated by the banker and businessman Johann Friedrich Städel in his will, the Städel Museum was established in 1815 as a civic foundation. Thanks to the founder’s dedication and avid collecting activities, we can today offer our visitors a virtually complete overview of 700 years of art—from the early fourteenth century to the Renaissance, from the Baroque to Classical Modernism and the very present. 

Among the collection highlights are works by such artists as Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Sandro Botticelli, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer, Maria Sibylla Merian, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann, Lotte Laserstein, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter and Wolfgang Tillmans. Take an inspiring stroll through the centuries and discover your own personal favourite.

In his foundation deed, Johann Friedrich Städel specified that his

He thus entrusted us with the task of making the works in the collection accessible to the public. Apart from preserving the collection, it is incumbent on us to study and expand it and, naturally, to develop exhibitions. 

We work to accomplish this mission by offering a programme of events and activities our visitors can take advantage of on site at the Städel as well as online. Our aim is to enable wide-ranging experiences of art and its history. That makes the Städel Museum far more than just a place. It is an invitation that opens up new vistas, sharpens the senses and provides enjoyment.

Johann Friedrich Städel was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1728. His father Johann Daniel Städel had come to Frankfurt from Strasbourg to engage in trade. Johann Friedrich followed suit, initially carrying on the paternal spice business on Grosser Kornmarkt before opening his own on Rossmarkt in 1784, at the age of fifty-six. In addition to spices and coffee, he sold pigments such as indigo and metals such as lead bar. As time went on, he also became active in commission and banking transactions that ultimately paved his way to wealth.

Städel had a keen interest in art. As far back as the 1760s, he had begun filling his house with paintings, drawings, prints and small-scale sculptures, most of which he purchased on his numerous travels. Whereas in painting he concentrated on the German and Dutch Baroque, his pursuits in the area of prints and drawings were far broader: he set out to amass a comprehensive overview of the history of art. Already early on, he planned to give the public access to his art holdings and to train and foster budding artists. 

In his living quarters he hosted art shows and gave private guided tours to interested individuals. Johann Friedrich Städel died in Frankfurt am Main in 1816. The final version of his will, written on 15 March 1815, contains a foundation deed. That document laid the cornerstone for the Städelsches Kunstinstitut—the original name of the museum now known the world over as the Städel Museum.

When he wrote his will in 1815, Johann Friedrich Städel laid the groundwork for Germany’s oldest museum foundation. In 2015, joined by the people of Frankfurt, the Städel Museum celebrated its bicentennial with several superb exhibitions and projects. The anniversary also marked the beginning of the Digital Expansion: to this day, the Städel has continued to develop digital offers to enhance the museum visit in entertaining and technically innovative ways at no extra cost. The Städel Museum is thus fulfilling its educational mission—to make art accessible to all—far beyond the boundaries of its physical premises.

Looking back on a past firmly anchored in the history of Frankfurt, the Städel carries its founder’s vision—to make the museum accessible to one and all—into the present. Over the past years it has realized groundbreaking exhibitions and research projects, its collection has been enriched by prominent new purchases, gifts and bequests, and it has continually offered an up-to-date programme of events and activities for all visitor groups. 

The museum has also invested in structural measures to ensure its sustainable operability on all levels: the historical Main River façade has been restored, the Department of Prints and Drawings—complete with its Study Hall—refurbished, the Städel garden newly landscaped and planted, the Old Masters and Modern galleries decorated with a new colour scheme and equipped with a low-energy LED lighting system. We have the great dedication of private and public supporters to thank for these many enhancements. It is they who make the Städel Museum one of Germany’s most successful art museums.

Director
Dr. Philipp Demandt

Vice Directors
Prof. Dr. Jochen Sander, Vice Director for Scholarly Affairs
Heinz-Jürgen Bokler, Vice Director for Commercial and Personnel Affairs