Frankfurt’s Städel Museum is organizing an impressive lineup of exhibitions in 2015 to mark its 200th anniversary. The celebratory initiative, entitled The People of Frankfurt’s Museum: A Gift for Everyone, features high-profiles shows of the work of Claude Monet and John Baldessari, among others.

In addition, the museum has announced that the president of the Städel’s Foundation of Benefactors, Sylvia von Metzler, presented museum director Max Hollein and the administrative chairman Nikolaus Schweickart with Guido Reni’s Assumption of Mary (1596/97), and Study of an Act (ca. 1888-1892), a drawing by Edgar Degas.

The Reni painting gift was the result of a successful fundraising campaign organized by the Benefactors Foundation, the Degas drawing was the gift of a single local benefactress.

But the exhibition highlight of the anniversary year is undoubtedly Monet and The Birth of Impressionism which runs from March 11 to June 21 and includes about 100 masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Sisley, and Cezanne.

Another highlight includes a special exhibition featuring works by the American conceptual artist John Baldessari, which opens on November 5.

The Städel museum was founded by the local banker and merchant Johann Friedrich Städel 200 years ago in 1815, when he bequeathed his entire fortune and art collection to the people of Frankfurt.