Pomeranian Grenadier II

Joachim Utech, who came from the family of construction masters and sculptors, mentioned in the records as early as the 18th century, started to learn art in the Berlin studio of Georg Wrba. He was also an apprentice in the stucco work studio of Bräger in Kołobrzeg. In the autumn of 1907, Utech commenced studies in Kunstschule des Westens in Charlottenburg, in the studio of Georg Koch. After completing military service in Gdańsk, he returned to Berlin in order to continue studies with Walter Hauschild; in 1912, he passed the state exam in drawing and a year later in professional subjects. Utech mastered his skills at the Leipzig Academy where, after returning from the Eastern and Italian fronts of WWI, he embarked on an art career, teaching classes in a Higher School for Girls. For a few years, he lived in Insterburg (Czerniachowsk by the Pregoła) in Eastern Prussia, working as a drawing teacher. In 1925, he returned to his home town Białogard and taught art classes in the local middle school and devoted himself to art work in his atelier adjoining his home. On 1 March 1945 Utech, together with his family, left Białogard and moved first to Eyendorf near Lüneburg and later settled in Lüneburg. After returning from the Daxweiler clinic, Utech spent the last period of his life in a home for exiled artists and scientists in Marburg. Executed in grey granite, representing the artist's mature style, the “Pomeranian Grenadier II” is an expressive and austere, simplified sculpture of a man, which is a more of a universal presentation of a type of character than the rendering of a specific person. In 1943, the sculpture was purchased for the collection of the Szczecin Pomersches Landesmuseum.

Dariusz Kacprzak