The first museum in Germany to be endowed by a bourgeois citizen was founded in 1815 by Frankfurt banker and merchant J. F. Stadel; today, the Stadel Museum's internationally renowned collection provides a unique perspective of 700 years of European art history, from the Middle Ages to the present day. Countless initiatives, outstanding gifts, important acquisitions, and enthusiastic patronage have allowed the collection to expand to a great extent, especially in the area of contemporary art. In order to make these treasures accessible to the public, the Stadel Museum will open a new wing in the winter of 2011-12, which will practically double the size of the museum's gallery space. To celebrate this new and re-opening, the entire exhibition at the Stadel Museum will be presented in book form. The works-most of them in full-page plates-will be presented in detail and as part of a thematic overview, in three volumes (Old Masters, Modernism, contemporary art).

Text by: Peter-Andre Alt, Matthias Doepfner, Wilhelm Genazino, Durs Grunbein, Ulla Hahn, Felix Kramer, Martin Mosebach, Neo Rauch, Roger Willemsen