CRANE KALMAN GALLERY
The Crane Kalman Gallery was founded by Hungarian émigré Andras Kalman (24 May 1918–26 July 2007) in 1949 as a small art gallery in the basement of a disused air-raid shelter in central Manchester which blossomed into one of the most eminent London-based galleries of the second half of the 20th century. Kalman came to England in 1938 to study Chemistry at Leeds University and never saw his family again as they were killed in the ensuing Holocaust. He wrote to Ben Nicholson (1894-1982), Henry Moore (1898-1986), Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), Matthew Smith (1879-1959), Lucian Freud (1922-2011) and others, requesting the loan of works on a sale or return basis with most responding well, but not the public, of which none of whom turned up for the private view. Owing to a misread description it became known as the Crane Kalman Gallery. Towards the end of his first show, the local painter L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) came in and, sensing that Kalman was struggling, bought a small painting which began a lifelong friendship. By 1957 he had relocated to London where he set up the Crane Kalman Gallery at 178 Brompton Road almost opposite Harrods. Kalman staged many exhibitions of works by artists that included not only Lowry but Frank Auerbach (1931-2024), David Bomberg (1890-1957), Edward Burra (1905-1976), Graham Sutherland (1903-1980), Christopher Wood (1901-1930) and many other 20th-century Modern British painters. After his death in 2007 the Gallery was managed by two of his children Andrew and Richard Kalman. Suffolk artists who exhibited with Crane Kalman include Mary Newcomb, Tessa Newcomb, John Reay and Michael Richards.
Website: https://www.cranekalman.com