Crane Kalman Gallery

Founded by Hungarian-Jewish émigré Andras Kalman (1919-2007) in 1949 as a small art gallery in central Manchester in the basement of a disused air-raid shelter it 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. With a young man's chutzpah, he set his sights high, writing to Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein, Matthew Smith, Lucian Freud and others, requesting the loan of works on a sale or return basis. Most responded well, but not so the public, none of whom turned up for the first private view. A Manchester Guardian typesetter misread Kalman's continentaL cursive script for 'new gallery opening' as 'Crane Gallery opening'. So he simply adopted this singular name, the gallery thereafter being known as the Crane Kalman Gallery. Towards the end of the first show, the local painter L.S. Lowry came in and, sensing that Kalman was struggling, bought a small painting. So began a lifelong friendship. By 1957 he had relocated to London where he set up the Gallery at 178 Brompton Road almost opposite Harrods. He showed many artists from the Ecole de Paris in 1963 putting on a show titled 'Soutine - Modigliani' (with a characteristically phrased sub-title 'A modest complement to the Tate Gallery Exhibition').

Kalman staged many exhibitions of works by artists that included not only Lowry but Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Graham Sutherland, Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Edward Burra, Christopher Wood and the good and the great of 20th-century Modern British painting. His gallery continued after his demise to be run by two of his children.