ABSTRACT :
was founded by Wilhelm Utermann in Dortmund in 1853 and is now in its fifth generation of family ownership. What originally started as a book and stationery company quickly developed into a high-quality art gallery with a framing workshop. In the 1890s, after taking over the business from his father, Carl Utermann focused on the Düsseldorf and Munich schools of painting and eventually had his own residential and commercial building built in the heart of Dortmund. After the destruction of the gallery premises at the end of the Second World War, Werner Utermann, Carl’s son, rebuilds the art business in the ruins of the city with established positions from the 19th century, but also modern artists such as Otto Pankok and Käthe Kollwitz. His son Wilfried Utermann takes over the gallery in 1972 and changes the artistic focus towards German Expressionism and Classical Modernism. In 1978, on the occasion of the gallery’s 125th anniversary, Utermann opens a large Expressionist retrospective, which ultimately establishes the gallery in the modern field. In 1986, the art dealers Prof. Hans Pels-Leusden, Michael Neumann, Bernd Schultz, Raimund Thomas, and Wilfried Utermann decide to found the Berlin-based auction house Grisebach. Today, Grisebach is one of the leading auction houses in Europe. In 1998, the gallery moves within Dortmund to the Hansakontor, the former administrative building of Ruhrkohle AG, an architectural monument of post-war reconstruction with its sculpture garden.
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