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

Venue: NGV International, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne
Dates: 19 June - 10 October 2010
Cost: Adult: $23.00 / Concession: $18.00 / Children: $11.00 / Family: $60.00 / Member: $16.00

Click on the images for a larger view

One of the world’s finest collections of 19th and 20th century art will be coming exclusively to Melbourne this June as the seventh exhibition in the hugely popular Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series at the National Gallery of Victoria.

European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century will bring together over 100 works by 70 artists from one of Germany’s oldest and most respected museums, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.

Dr Gerard Vaughan, NGV Director, said: “European Masters will present a comprehensive overview of the Städel Museum’s holdings of painting and sculpture from the last two centuries of European art.“This blockbuster exhibition will provide a superb survey of the key artistic movements of the time, including Realism, Impressionism and Post Impressionism, German Romanticism, Expressionism and Modernism, and French Symbolism.”

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. 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.

Henri Rousseau
The avenue in the Park of Saint-
Cloud c.1908
(Allée dans le parc de Saint-Cloud)
(Die Allee im Park von Saint-Cloud)
oil on canvas, 46.2 x 37.6 cm
Inv.Nr. SG 404
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1926

European Masters will then trace the development of German art, introducing audiences to rarely seen Realist and Symbolist masterpieces from artists such as Max Liebermann and Franz von Stuck.

A major highlight of the exhibition will be a powerful selection of German Expressionist paintings, with ten poignant works by Max Beckmann, including The synagogue in Frankfurt am Main and his powerful Double Portrait, all of which will leave the Städel for the first time to be shown at the NGV.

The exhibition also includes a breathtaking selection of Swiss, Belgian and Dutch works by artists such as Arnold Böcklin, Fernand Khnopff and Vincent Van Gogh.

“Exclusive to Melbourne, European Masters provides an unprecedented opportunity to see a spectacular group of masterpieces spanning the dynamic and transformative years of the 19th and 20th century. There is something in this exhibition for everyone, from the beauty and immediacy of French Impressionism to the raw power of German Expressionism. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see superb pictures that rarely travel outside of Europe,” said Dr. Vaughan.

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 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series began in 2004 with The Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, continued in 2005 with Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, followed by Picasso in 2006, Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now in 2007, Art Deco 1910 -1939 and Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire in 2009.

This year Melbourne Winter Masterpieces includes European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century at the NGV, and Tim Burton at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century will be open daily from 10am-5pm from 19 June until 10 October and until 9pm every Wednesday from 23 June for art after dark.

Hans Thoma
In the hammock 1876
(Dans un hamac)
(In der Hängematte)
oil on canvas, 107.0 x 147.0 cm
Inv.-Nr. SG 22
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1908 with funds from the Pfungst-Stiftung