The Galerie Boisserée now presents art of the 20th and the 21st centuries on two floors, particularly painting and prints after 1950, as well as Contemporary Art. Boisserée thus combines art dealership (with established names) and gallery activity in the field of Contemporary Art by emerging artists.

In addition to numerous originals, the gallery has also built up an extensive stock of original prints from 1950 through today, and now boasts a comprehensive collection of approximately 300 graphic works by Appel, Braque, Chagall, Chillida, Clavé, Coignard, Dahmen, Ernst, Estève, Francis, Hartung, Marini, Matisse, Miró, Motherwell, Picasso, Poliakoff, Saura, Schumacher, Sonderborg, Soulages, and Tàpies, to name only the most important artists included.

With regard to prints, the gallery attaches great importance to the collecting merit of the individual works: the visitor to the gallery will thus find in the collection only original prints, largely hand-signed, with relatively low editions, and thorough cataloguing.

In the last few years, particularly in the collection of painting after 1950, has been expanded upon, accompanied by comprehensive solo exhibitions of artists such as Ackermann, Bitran, Brodwolf, Clavé, Dahmen, Kalinowski, Klasen, Saura, Soulages, Tàpies, Voss, etc.

The foundation of the current program of young, Contemporary Art in the Galerie Boisserée was established by Johannes Schilling in 1986. From the very beginning, his goal was to emphasise the idea of quality within the field of new art and, and to discover and promote emerging artists by, among other things, a highly active exhibition program, the publication of catalogues, and participation in international art fairs. Thus, the Galerie Boisserée has been represented since 1990 at the Art Cologne. Furthermore, the gallery also exhibited in 1991 and 1992 at the Découvertes in Paris. In 1994, 1997, and 2004, the gallery participated in Art Frankfurt. In 1999, the gallery participated for the first time in Kunst 99 in Zürich, dedicated exclusively to young artists.

Among the artists who now belong to the regular program of Contemporary Art are sculptors, Riera i Aragó and Rainer Hagl, painters, Henning Kürschner, Volker Lehnert, Andreas Rein, Peter Tomschiczek, Wolfgang Troschke, Rolf Urban, Jan Voss, Franziskus Wendels, and numerous others.

The Galerie Boisserée was founded in 1838 in Cologne by two nephews of Sulpiz Boisserée (art collector and friend of Goethe; founder of the Cologne Dombauverein), initially as a bookstore and art gallery. At around the turn-of-the-century, ownership of the business was transferred to the Schilling family. Hermann Schilling managed Boisserée until the World War II. After the war, his son Walter Schilling took over the firm and established the current gallery in 1955 in direct proximity to the Cologne Cathedral, across from the WDR (West German Broadcasting Company) and the Museum of Applied Art, only three minutes from the main train station. In 1988, Walter Schilling handed over the now over 160-year-old business to his son, Johannes Schilling. In 1990, Johannes Schilling opened a second gallery in Cologne (Galerie Johannes Schilling), in which he presented a very young, Contemporary program. Represented here are artists such as Andreas Rein, Wolfgang Troschke, Volker Lehnert, Franziskus Wendels, and Peter Tomschiczek. In the 1990s, he simultaneously built up a new program focus for the Galerie Boisserée, namely abstract art after 1950. With regard to the art of the 20th century, he directed his special attention toward the medium of the original print. Worth mentioning here is the collection of selected prints, which now comprises over 300 works.

In 1993, Johannes Schilling expanded the exhibition space of the Galerie Boisserée to nearly 300 square meters, and integrated the Contemporary program established in the Galerie Johannes Schilling. Since 1994, Schilling has dedicated himself to Classical Modern Art, as well as to Contemporary Art, through alternating exhibitions in the newly restructured Galerie Boisserée, and has participated in Art Cologne on a regular basis since 1990. In 1998, Schilling took on Thomas Weber, who has been employed in the gallery since 1995, as a partner in the management of the gallery.

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