European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th - 20th Century

European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th – 20th Century brings together a remarkable collection of masterpieces from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, one of the finest collections in Europe.   

Founded in 1816 by the Frankfurt financier Johann Friedrich Städel, the Städel Museum has one of the world’s finest art collections. The collection boasts 2800 paintings, 600 sculptures and over 100,000 prints and drawings documenting the development of European art and culture.

The NGV is truly privileged to host this exhibition, as the Städel have committed only the highlights of its renowned collection of 19th and 20th century European art. Alongside masterpieces by German artists are works by the greatest French, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss masters of the time.  Included are iconic Neo-Classical, Realist, Impressionist and Symbolist works, through to breathtaking German Expressionist paintings and sculpture, rarely seen in Australia. 

The exhibition will open with a series of large-scale romantic German paintings, including Johan Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s iconic Goethe in the Roman Campagna from 1787.

A high point is the presence of no fewer than ten works by Max Beckman, the quintessential Expressionist artist. This is an unprecedented opportunity to see a spectacular array of the finest European art spanning the dynamic and transformative years of the 19th and 20th century.

Visitors will also be treated to magnificent examples of 19th century French art from Corot and Courbet’s Realist landscapes to well-known beautiful Impressionist works by Monet, Renoir, Degas and Cézanne.