Fiesta

Tony liked to party when young. Older he could start one, but not finish it. He would get tired. I guess he liked the preparations best: the house clean and bright, flowers everywhere, enough seating corners where people could retire for a while and walls full of his paintings. Then the peopple coming in and seeing the effect on them of our preparations. That moment was probably why he did it. Happy New Year, Peace, Beauty, Love and light. Tumbleweed.

October 1983

You find here two newspaper clippings and the price list from the 1983 exhibition in Gallery Atrium. He had a big sculpting there that was the focal point in Café De Linde on the South side of Antwerp. then the sculpting moved to a castle in Portugal. The paintings in that time were big, reaching to the floor, being installations, often with a book added... I don't remember what or if he sold. The revues at least were great, loving Tony Mafia and his work.

Great Fish

The lyrics read: Loving the great fish is the ultimate and end too Well that is true enough. Tony was an avid fisherman. He liked rivers, lakes even stocked ponds. I guess it quietened his mind concentrating on the next catch. He usually caught us a meal, but once in a while I would outfish him. This is a monoprint from 1975.

Animals

This whimsical animal drawing seems to be a drawing for children: note the mouse, the monkey, the hippopotamus, the bull, the bird and the pigeon, the lion and a man with a tear in his eye.
All for the smile of a child. As far as I can tell, watercolor and oil pastel: All for your smile in yesteryear's snows.

Feltpen

Sometimes Tony would run out of money, run out of materials, run out of food... Yes often he has been a starving artist. But as long as he could lay his hands on a piece of paper and a pencil or just as here on a felt pen, he would survive another day. This was 1970.

Harlequins

These tender harlequins from 1993 are a pen and ink wash; gentle, slightly sad, and well executed. Tony loved the openness and space. What I love are the very expressive eyes of the two figures of course.

Christmas song

A flamenco Christmas song for you all, through this 1997 oil called Spanish Lady and guitarist. Sing along, think along with the pretty lady and I hope you can enjoy the warmth of good companionship. Merry Christmas, good Hanuka, good winter Katchina dances... Whatever brings light and love.

Taurus

For the Tauruses among us this whimsical, mythical beast, probably stemming from 1972 or '73. it is a monoprint finished with pastels. Tony Mafia would on a glass plate create a background, make one print then change the background and thus creating more coincidence in the backgrounds. having watched him do this often, I know there was also a lot of skill and intent.

Flyer

Tony's work keeps touching people's hearts. This is the flyer for an upcoming music and poetry event, which is the end of year of a series of house concerts. And loving his work so much, a small house exhibition is also planned by the enthusiastic organizer. The improvising musicians are awesome, if you're not too far away come and join the festivities. Five instruments, one voice and a poet reading while Tony's work is projected on the wall.

part two

Here too you can see the corrections and a few preliminary drawings. The final book became much longer in black and white washes and pen and ink drawings... One of these days I'll post the full Love and Loved story. You'll see that the nucleous is already present here.

Process of writing

I'll be showing the first sketches and writings prefiguring what later became the story of 'Love and Loved'. A far as I can tell the corrections are Tony's . It must have been early seventies when the idea first came to him.

Seascape

After a series of new and vibrant work a quiet old piece.: a pastel seascape with clouds and hidden sun. It could be a bay, even a white water river. A fast but misleading impression makes one overlook the figure in the rocky foreground and the white self portrait in the foam.

Tears and yellow jacket

In this oil painting , Tony never used acrylics, a few themes come together. First of all the gallery setting, thus having paintings in a painting. Furthermore, the female figure cries. Here just as in the Tearing skull the tears are well painted, almost as if to prove he could do the precise work. The painting is from 1999. Well, I had reasons to be sad and cry and yes I had a yellow jacket. From abstract sections to reality in one painting.

Poison

In 1998 there was a major flood in Antwerp and surroundings and our address having been Lageweg 431 in Hoboken we were thoroughly flooded out. Tony saved the two dogs floating on a chair after coming home from the hospital and the factory must have opened some lines which they shouldn't have. The result was a poisonous slme, sludge clearly visible after pouring out od the factory. This paper was tainted by it and Tony painted the appropriate subject on it: Poison. He cared about nature, was a fisherman and wanted the water to be clean. He wasn't the best recycler though. He also loved his cars, the excuse being his getting out of breath when walking too far. This piece was in the retrospective of Hoboken 'A brush'.

Children of a clown time

This is the oldest work I have by Tony Mafia. First we knew him as a singer/busker in Antwerp. He knew how to seduce a guitar. In August 1968 we met him with his wife and young son in the market. He invited us over and we admired his drawings. That was the day of the beginning of a collection. This is a mixed medium. The text reads: The children of a clown time stand alone to remove the false, to grab at any bud or blossom, to stay his weight, some to compare and to find one or the other of a less or unfulfilled promise, still alone to sit and dream of a tomorrow spring.

Yellow sweater

The yellow sweater I have worn for a long time, the skirt I still have. Sometimes Tony was very realistic even if one doesn't expect it from his wilder work. This is a '93 oil painting. I like the vanishing point in the landscape. It was a fairly good time.

Tearing skull

Among the garbage in the street Tony picked up a canvas and painted this amazing piece. You will see when you click to open the picture that the faces are compositions of other figures that landscapes and humans flow together. Tony was in that time (1998) fascinated by the form of drops of water. He probably was also depressed on and off and thus tears appeared on his canvasses. Here is the combination of tenderness and sadness, tranquility and a tearing skull.

Out of step with the band

Tony and I felt usually out of step, out of sync with the two worlds we were living in. I think that Obama Barack's victory would have really pleased Tony Mafia. He was a democrat at heart and a member of the party and had been at the first march between Selma en Montgomery. He told me about the German shepherds chasing the people. I wonder what he would have painted about this feeling of relief. I am sure he would feel even more patiotic now. The painting from 1997 was shown in Leonhard's and Lineart in 1998.

The moonbathers

The moonbather is a 1998 large oilpaining, shown at Leonhard's Gallery in Antwerp. Enjoy the swirling night sky, the people on the beach and those in the water. See the embracing couple? See the banana moon? One of Tony's lighthearted works...

The lizard

The lady with the lizard over her shoulder also holds, or is part of, an egg shaped form filled with people. I love the colors, the contrast between the straight, stark lines and the gentle flow of the figurative work. Lizards are an important symbol in Native American iconography. It represents purity. This is one of Tony Mafia's late works, but it bears no date and was painted in Hoboken.

Millenium Ball

Tony Mafia didn't make it till the millennium but seemed fascinated by the turning of time. This oil painting he called millennium ball. The painting has a lot of people and some abstraction, a high bridge and a far perspective. After all it was all about futures.

The peasant couple reveling in the foreground contrasting the elegance of the two dancers in the background: this could be a painting about the clash of harsh reality and art, about expectations and dreams, about love, lust and tenderness. Tony Mafia also could have just met them on the cobblestoned streets in Antwerp in 1999, came home and painted what he felt and saw. Note the abstract paintings in the background, the meeting could have been in a gallery and the art critic took the lady home...

The sheepherder

This whimsical sheepherder stems from 1994. See the sheep peeking over the rim of the painting? I am partial to the abstractions of reds in the background, the half horizon and the tears the shepperd is crying. Why, one has to wonder.

Mixed media

Here you can see what I mean when I say that a drawing is a mixed medium. The basis here is water color, then a few lines are in oil pastels, a structured circle is in oil, there is some pen and Chinese ink and the drawing is finished in pencil. He did this drawing for a friend in Chloride Dave Hunzinger and Reta let me show it to you. A dream for Dave June 1997.

Us

This small oil (about 45 cm by 35) Tony painted in Chloride in the early nineties. The misty figure with the white hair is Mr Mafia himself and the dark haired lady, well just me. Tony regularly did whimsical portraits and this, almost abstract, is a rather gentle one.

Indians up the wall

When Tony would run out of canvasses, he would get nervous. Many of his friends have told me he would get anxious and would have to paint. Here at my our old place in Hoboken the painting grew and grew: shields, bison, receding vanishing points, braves, Thunderbirds and Black Suns. Often his signature Black Sun was enough to know it was Tony's work.

At work

In Chloride, Tony starting up a double mixed medium in the studo. And the seccond drawing a short while later. He worked very concentrated, fast. He would joke I am the fastest brush in the west... Circus, the arena of life, the studio the battleground, here his moods and feelings came to life on the canvas. Sometimes he would go back and back to the same canvas or drawing, change it, living with it.

Unfinished

If one grows old or if one doesn't, there is always unfinished business. So is this drawing of us waking up in the morning sun in Chloride. The drawing is hanging framed in the room where we did wake up: The bed, the embrace, the blues in the room and sometimes in our souls and the window with the glorious morning sun.

Growing old

The name of this drawing: They sure grow old FAST

The ink wash is titled: The old man and the past. The passing of time, growing old, seeing others age, fascinated Tony, but it also frightened him. Mafia was afraid he would be infirm, or on the other hand that he wouldn't grow old at all. He had lived hard and had heart disease, he had seen people die when Shanghai fell. His father had committed suicide and Tony valued living. So regularly the days going by and what this did to people would be portrayed.

Gebo

In the spring of 1971 Tony Mafia had an exhibition in Gebo Gallery in Antwerp. The picture on the invitation was a larger canvas with a boy in the foreground. I read it as a Native American family contemplating the plain and the river. Lots of grays and blues.

Alive

This little pen and ink drawing from November 1990 was probably done in the States but feeling blue for Antwerp. You see the city in the background. It shows one of Tony's recurrent themes: the art coming alive, taking off of the page: set free from art folder is what he wrote with it. Nice tribute to a city and its pretty ladies. Notice the harlequin and the musician in the drawings in the background? Tony Mafia had the blues...

The red apple

Arthur wrote: The Auction that I bought the painting at was an estate auction, I did not meet Tony nor the previous seller, I just fell in love the painting. All my friends love the painting as well. I do not know the name of it and it would be great if I did.
There is a riddle in the back on the painting that reads:
A Mistery
A Secret
A thing
for to
find
Tony Mafia
80
My comment: What a nice surprise. It is for sure a real Tony Mafia. Everything tells me so: the skies, the circles in the tree, the horses, the elongated figure, and the twist of he holding the apple of seduction... Waw. I am falling in love with this one too. I think but this is not the gospel that she is a portrait of his girlfriend at the time 1980 might have been Gina or Sue, both brunettes and pretty. I am falling for this painting too.

Zandvoort

The drawing is on a monoprint, something Tony used to do in the late sixties and sometimes when he felt like it. The drawing is from 69 and the invitation from a show of almost a month in Holland in 68.

The ascension

The ascension of Christ is a real large canvas more than 2 meter by 2 meter. It depicts several scenes of the old and new testament: The opening of the Red Sea, the taking off the cross of Christ, Mary Magdalen bending over with her hair and Mary almost cartoonish. As I have written before Tony struggled with his faith, hoped there would be a god, but not realy count on it. In his worst moments of fear he prayed. He had asked for a catholic funeral and there have been services in Hoboken and in Arizona. He was always sincere when painting, the canvas and the result on it is what mattered most.

The caling of color

This was a drawing Tony cared about. The full text is: To say the calling of paint would be to tell you of them that live in and around color. It is obviously a self-portrait while at work on a canvas. It also shows his beloved nudes and the black sun that is his secret Native American signature.

Going Dutch

These are two invitations from the period Tony mafia lived in Holland with his then family, hence the mother and child. The second invitation is for a show on the Rosengracht in Amsterdam in the Karel Ruiter Gallery. It states that Tony's work is to be found in different collections among others in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. So this corroborates Tony's story.

Lone lonely I wander

The photograph is Tony on the middle mike, either with 'The Men' or with 'The Association' at Doug Weston's 'The Troubadour'.

The text round the drawing is from a song Tony wrote:
Lone lonely I wander
a grey grain in the sands of time
dark clouds and thunder call from the night
looking lonely for some one to love
as I love thee
But lonely I wander
Lonely I wander
an endless hum in the melody of time
a breeze blown from the sea
laughing crying called to me
looking lonely for someone to love
as I loved thee
But lonely we wander

Alleen eenzaam dwaal ik
een grijze korrel in het zand van de tijd
donkere wolken en donder roepen uit de nacht
eenzaam zoekend naar iemand om lief te hebben
als ik jou lief heb
Maar eenzaam dwaal ik
Eenzaam dwaal ik
een eindeloze zang in de melodie van de tijd
een bries aangewaaid uit de zee
roept mij lachend schreiend
eenzaam zoekend naar iemand om lief te hebben
als ik jou lief had
Maar eenzaam dwalen wij

Drumming you up

A mixed medium drawing with a lot of writing around it. Some of it about the pale rider, death. I o not know what happened March 17 in 1987, maybe another heart episode e was trying to forget in a girls arms. Part of the text: I can only tell you a story are you to ??? of a blue eyed mermaid and or and to return a nine mile under a PAIL pale pael rider to carry my soul to peace as sound the drum of never. Yes fear of death often accompanied Tony, looking for redemption, or peace of mind.

Nude Moon

To say that Tony was not one who loved the night sky would be wrong. As a kid, I always remember when my father and I would visit Tony and Annmarie in Chloride, we would always stare at the sky's and talk for hours. Somewhere deep down in my heart I sort of feel tony painted pictures by forming his own figures in the sky. I do remember him asking me what shapes I saw in the sky one night, though sadly I don't remember much else that night.
posted by Windsong. Nude Moon is a painting from 1975.

Music in Antwerp

I met Tony Mafia back in the summer of 1982 when I was busking my way around Europe for my first time. Amazing as it sounds I had the fortune of meeting him on the second day of my adventure. I had crashed on Pete Punkers spare mattress and in the morning he took me to the café in this picture Billenkletser . I am the one cut off and behind us is Mike Stone from Manchester. That same morning Derroll Adams wandered by and joined us and I didn't know either one of these guys but they were both dropping names like they really knew all these famous people. I ended up staying around Antwerp for a few weeks just to find out what kind of musical Mecca I had found. Tony was the driving force to keep me around he kept trying to talk me into making a singing cowboy band. Ha! He was famous for dropping a beat every once in awhile which drove me crazy- but you had to love being around him anyway. Tony was such a magical man. Wish this could be sound as well because I have a recording of him singing "Georgia" and "On the Road Again"

I am looking for a way to post the music... 5 songs... help!

Dambruggestraat

David's words: Now for these two pictures of a mural Tony painted on Vera Singlyn's wall sometime in the 90's. He was hiding out there for awhile and everyone in the house was fixing the house up so Tony pitched in and did his share by painting this mural while everyone else was working.
Unfortunately this house is empty and has had a fire so I think these two photos are all that is left of that piece of art. This was Tony's way of teaching about impermanence. The last few pilgrimages I made to Antwerp and to see Tony he became my teacher of life. He would talk with me about how fleeting fame really was. How fame and disgrace are so close they were really two sides of the same coin.
Tony was like nobody I had ever met. He was truly and inspiration to be around. I loved him like a father.

Comment: I am immensely pleased these pictures showed up, the writing around the mural is mine. We both signed it.