John Alvaro Caldas. 1934 - 2006.

John Alvaro Caldas was born in Rusholme, Manchester in 1934. He showed an early talent for painting and drawing but chose to become a dancer, moving to London in 1952. He taught Tango and Latin American dance and had a successful stage career in the West End. His great love, however, was jazz and John left the theatre to play the drums professionally in and around Manchester from the late fifties to the mid sixties before settling once more in London.

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. He was acutely aware of Ruskin's ideas on "forgetting the self" when making art and wrote of the pitfalls of style, self-consciousness and the temptation as an artist to be a "purveyor of meaning" which he knew would lead to failure.

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.*

There are countless artists deserving of greater recognition. 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

* "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.

• Back Entry to Wellington Street, Manchester.
  1984.
  Oil on Canvas. 36 x 42 Inches.
• Falling Woman.
  1987.
  Oil on Canvas. 40 x 30 Inches.
• Untitled.
  1988.
  Oil on Canvas. 40 x 40 Inches.
• Untitled.
  1987.
  Oil on Canvas. 60 x 72 Inches.
• Unitiled.
  1988.
  Oil on Imperial Sheet. 22 x 30 Inches.
• Unitiled.
  1988.
  Oil on Imperial Sheet. 22 x 30 Inches.
• Unitiled.
  1988.
  Oil on Imperial Sheet. 22 x 30 Inches.
• Unitiled.
  1988.
  Oil on Imperial Sheet. 22 x 30 Inches.
• Unitiled.
  1986.
  Ink on Paper. 15 x 22 Inches.
• Unreazon and the Angel of Dhark.
  2001.
  Watercolour on Imperial Sheet. 22 x 30 Inches.
• The Edge.
  1983.
  Oil on Canvas. 44 x 40 Inches.
• Vaulted Room 1.
  1982.
  Oil on Paper. 14 x 20 Inches.
• Vaulted Room 2.
  1983.
  Oil on Board. 14 x 20 Inches.
• Untitled.
  1984.
  Oil on Board. 36 x 42 Inches.
• Untitled.
  1986.
  Oil on Canvas. 40 x 36 Inches.
• Let Him Without Guilt.
  1983.
  Oil on Canvas. 44 x 40 Inches.
• Dark Sun Descending.
  1985.
  Oil on Canvas. 43 x 48 Inches.
• Untitled.
  1988.
  Oil on Canvas. 40 x 40 Inches.