Painting in the street

Tony, while being in the air force, was stationed in Southern Germany. On one of his leaves he went to Paris. This was the early fifties and of course he always carried his paints and brushes. He ended up setting up shop on the banks of Seine. He liked to paint with an audience which didn't intimidate him at all. He either ignored them or danced in front of the canvas, doing a little show to entertain them. I don't know what, nor how he painted that day. Along comes a well dressed, rotund gentleman, who watches him for quite a while and a group of onlookers grows. Hear them whisper in French, hear a solemn silence and Tony probably joking in English, or commenting. When the gentleman with cane, goes his way, he turns to Tony and says: If you keep painting you could become a master. The group applauds and then some one asks: 'Do you know whom that was, that was Monsieur Henri Matisse!' He told me the stories several times, wondering why it mattered to him...
I think if you look at Matisse's work that you can see the way the both handled color and were free in the representation of their subject, without being abstract. This Crucifiction is in Harry Kegels' office, a friend and collector of Tony's work. The drawing was shown at Lineart 1998 in Ghent.