Mexican and Spanish Paintings

The five O'clock Sun, when in the arena the bloods drips from the sword and the bull is slain...
Tony Mafia has often stayed for longer periods in Spain and Mexico. He worked for instance during six month in Casares, near Malaga in Spain. There he painted a whole exhibit in 1964, which sold out completely upon showing in Paris in Madame Besnard's Gallery. We met her in probably 1997, confirming all Tony's story about that period of his life, this was my impression of that meeting:

All is changed
nothing stays the same
but the street
on which the changing
walk until words
of past
hurt
for lack of a tomorrow

The fading star
of laughter lost
hears but the
murmur of memory
on rue St André des Arts
meeting Madame
Françoise Besnard

The small white village of Casares, with its bizarre soul surfaces now and then again as in “The lady with the goat”. Furthermore he knows bullfighting, Flamenco (he plays a mean guitar), the gypsies and the dance from the inside, the rendering of which are consequently never trivial, superficial or touristy. In these themes we once again find the freedom of expression that is given by “the costume”: the traje de luz of the bullfighters, knowing full well that the picador is important and that the toreador and matador wouldn’t stand a chance without him. He really lived the bullfights because he 'went' as a young man with I seem to remember Betty Ford, a lady matador and toured parts of Mexico with her... Guitars, peasants and multiple warm-blooded women are depicted, but also the thread of Death. To counter this, very often life is painted in full and robust color.


Of course Don Quixote and Dulcinea have to be there as well.