John Alvaro Caldas (1934-2006)

We are delighted to announce that we are now working with the agent of the John Alvaro Caldas estate in promoting and selling his incredible paintings. We first came across his works around 2009 when visiting the old Tib Lane Gallery in Manchester, which had been taken over by Phillips Art Gallery.

A bold expressive blue portrait was being displayed in the window and it caught our attention immediately. Ever since then he has been an artist of real interest to us and we are now fortunate to have access to them to display at Der Haroutunian Gallery.

John Alvaro Caldas was born in Rusholme, Manchester in 1934.

Self taught in everything he did, John became an accomplished artist through hard work and practice. Throughout the rest of his life, he produced a large body of paintings and drawings of a consistently high technical standard and of an extraordinary intensity.

John's rather modest commercial success was due, in part, to the difficulty in finding a commercial gallery which viewed his work as more than just a commodity and his own refusal to become a "career" artist. Nevertheless, he received good reviews for his few solo exhibitions in London.

"My own view is that John Caldas is more deserving than most and that his art is too good to be ignored. His work cannot be pigeonholed. One is occasionally reminded of Edvard Munch or Rainer Fetting: perhaps Theodore Major. But it is never pastiche. It is unique."

David Powell (Phillips Art Gallery)

 "His Women in Library is the finest new painting I have seen in years and ought to be in the Tate". Philip Ward Green, Arts Review. 30th September 1983.

This is an incredible honour and opportunity for the gallery.