Gerhard Ernst Untermann photograph collection, 1940-1960

This collection contains material related to the life of Gerhard Ernest Untermann, Sr. Gerhard Ernest Untermann, Sr. was born 1864 November 6 in the Brandenburg Province of Prussia, presently Germany. Untermann was a seaman, socialist author, translator, and newspaper editor. In his later life he was Director of the Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee, a geologist, fossil hunter, and artist. He married Helen Rashman (Reischmann) Untermann, an active member of the Socialist Party of America who wrote for socialist women's publications. They had one son together in 1898.

Untermann studied geology and paleontology at the University of Berlin. After graduating from university, Untermann worked as a deckhand on a German steamer ship sailing to New York City. Untermann emigrated to America and joined the Merchant Marine, spending the next 10 years on the South Seas trade routes. In the decade he worked on ships, Untermann began sketching and painting. He studied privately under German-American painter William Heine, and later studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee. His earliest known painting is of a clipper ship, painted in 1896.

Untermann settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but he also lived in Illinois, Florida, Idaho, California, Oregon, and Utah. In the early 1900s, Untermann worked as a translator, author, and politician. Untermann translated the works of Frederick Engels and Karl Marx from 1902 to 1909. In addition to his translations, Untermann wrote original works on economics and natural history. Much of his work was published by the American-Marxist publishing house, Charles H. Kerr and Company, where Untermann became acquainted with Upton Sinclair, Jack London, and other socialist authors of the time. For several years, Untermann was a member of the writers and artist colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. Untermann, along with Jack London, John Reid and others took part in the foundation of the Socialist Party of America. From 1908 to 1914, Untermann resided in Carmel-by-the-Sea and ran for a United States Senate seat in California as a member of the American Socialist Party in 1912, but lost the election. Later in life, Untermann distanced himself from socialism. In 1919, Untermann moved to the Vernal, Utah, while working as a mining engineer for a Chicago company at the Dyer Mine in the Uinta Mountains. He became acquainted with Earl Douglas, discoverer of the dinosaur quarry north of Jensen, Utah, which eventually became Dinosaur National Monument.

From 1935 to 1939, Untermann was the Director of the Washington Park Zoo in Milwaukee. He contributed articles to Parks and Recreation Magazine and hosted the American Zoology Association Annual Conference in Milwaukee in 1938. While at the zoo, he studied the anatomy of many different animals, which he utilized in his later paintings of prehistoric life. In 1946, Utah Governor Herbert B. Maw allocated $200,000 of Department of Publicity and Industrial Development funds for the construction of the Utah Field House of Natural History in Vernal, Utah. Untermann joined the staff as artist, contributing over 100 paintings. In the later part of this life, Untermann worked primarily a painter, specializing in landscapes and prehistoric flora and fauna. He contributed paintings, murals, and panels to Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah, The Springville Art Museum in Springville, Utah, and has a collection of paintings at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in Vernal, Utah. Untermann died 1956 January 4 in Vernal, Utah. His papers are held by two institutions, the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Source: Utah Artists Project. (2011). Gerhard E. Untermann. University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library. https://lib.utah.edu/collections/utah-artists/UAP-Gerhard-Untermann.php