The Utermann Gallery

was founded by Wilhelm Utermann in Dortmund in 1853 and is now in its fourth 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 own sculpture garden. The expansion of the artistic programme into the contemporary field leads to close collaborations with the painter Horst Antes, the studio Norbert Tadeusz as well as the sculptor Abraham David Christian and the photographer Vera Lutter. In 2015 Lukas Minssen joines the gallery as a managing partner and today successfully runs the company together with Wilfried Utermann.

The artistic programme is accompanied by intensive publication activities through the in-house publishing company, with a focus on collaboration with renowned art historians and authors in order to preserve the highest academic standards. Through constant and international outreach, high-ranking works of art regularly find their place in museum collections. The visibility and research of art and its history is the gallery’s highest concern. Wilfried Utermann, with his comprehensive expertise, is a member of the scientific council of the Christian Rohlfs Archive in Hagen and Lukas Minssen is in the advisory board of the Emil Schumacher Foundation and the Kulturstiftung Dortmund. In addition to its premises in Dortmund, the gallery regularly participates in internationally renowned art fairs, including Art Cologne and TEFAF Maastricht.