Action

Here you see Tony Mafia in action in Hoboken. I am showing three pictures because he uses pencil, pastel oil crayons and oil: that is what I mean when I state that a drawing is mixed media. The yellow angel was shown in Leonhard's Fine Arts Gallery in Braschaat. The pictures were taken 1998 by his friend DL. Note the writing in pencil around the second drawing and how different the colors are. He often had two drawings going and an oil painting at the same time, sometimes creating totally different paintings with the same colors, sometimes using different forms and styles. He did what he felt was needed to get a good result.

Hospitals

Some of you know Tony had a bad heart. He had his first heart operation in 1979. In the eighties he was often in and out the VA hospitals. He drew what he saw and some impressions became etchings on a press DL bought together while others became silkscreens. I have seen only some of the hospitals because I only started sharing his life on a daily basis in 1991. He caught the atmosphere, the fear and sometimes the kindness of nurses or doctors. And yes finally his heart and lungs gave out, gave up.

Torero's in love

Two charcoal drawing, obviously not on the same material and at the same time, showing two toreadors and their loved one. Strength, sadness and gentleness are in these drawings. He would in differnt ways return to the bullfights. it was probably the dance of life and death and the esthetics of eros and thanatos that drew him.

Number 2 in payment

I was delighted with I finally found your blog on Tony Mafia. I had been sproradically "googling" his name for years with no luck.
I bought the picture around 1993/94 from an antique mall in Ocean Beach area of San Diego. I don't remember how much I paid, but I do remember that everything was 30% off- they were going out of business. So I'm sure I got an excellent deal.
I have alwsy loved the portrait and often refer to it as my Oscar Wilde picture since the woman looks rather androgenous. And while I never found anything about Tony, I knew the drawing was good enough quality to be a keeper.
I've also always been intrigued by the note "Number 2 in payment". I wonder what Number 1 was. Anyway, it fits with his roguish lifestyle.
Posted for Virginia, thank you for sharing!

Dogman

Tony loved dogs. He was seldom without them. The drawing 'A time of five' is of his great Dane late sixties, Los Angeles I think. The photo is Tony in Hoboken with Tootsie and her tree puppies: Vita, Vivaldi and Vee...

Goodbying was never said

Tony often wrote on his drawings and paintings. So he did on this airbrush and watercolor. The texts is clear enough for you all to read. There is obvious sadness. I do not know what loss Tony was mourning in this writing. Do you?

Warm over the stove

After showing some pictures of murals in Chloride that have been painted over, today you get to see some murals from Hoboken. See the delightful Indian scene over the fireplace. Tony had sworn never to do mural again because they just get lost... guess what... Tony painted those over when the place was replastered... There are a lot of narrative around about Tony. That is why I ask people to share their thoughts and feelings. Some saw him as an Indian others as a cowboy. Some thought he was the starving artist who made it from rags to riches... a scenario that never came true for him. To some he was generous, short tempered, proud, a genius. He objected to the last label because the consequences of that stigma are to heavy to carry.... Some saw him as a good musician and many saw him as a good friend. Because all the narrative surrounding Tony speak to peoples heart and mind he still lives on in many different imagined forms.

Galerie Françoise Besnard

This exhibition was held in 1966 after spending time in Casares and bringing down the work he had created there. We met Madame Besnard one day in Paris while Tony was showing me the old galleries where he showed. Listening to the two of them speak it was clear that Tony's story that they sold out the show was true. She said: We did well then. I still have two of your paintings in my living room. All the stories told me and having been able to check out a few of them, makes me think that all he told was a always a nice story, yet always based on some truth.

Press article

This is how Tony looked in th early seventies. The article about the show in Gebo Gallery in 1971 in Antwerp is titled Tony Mafia painter and poet. In that period with Ann he did a lo of mother and child drawings which the article reproduces here.


He also wrote around most drawings. At the show every one of those drawings had a card with the English and Dutch text.

Painting the dance

This too is older work: 1974. Tony returned often to the theme of dance since it gave him a freedom in movement and costume. Here it is rather abstract or iconic. Interestingly there is the paintbrush on the right hand side... This is a self-referential detail so we know who looked and painted: Tony Mafia.

Portraits

Tony used to portray the people around him, sometimes iconographic or realistic like here Ann, a young Danish girl when she became his 4th wife after meeting her in Paris after his stint in a Danish jail. He was married 5 times, but then such were the times when he was young and such was the man...

Townfolks

This is also part of the mural I showed yesterday. The mural was painted over because ony chose to portray the people that were down and out, the little kid he liked. The new owners of the Tennessee were going to have it restored, but I am afraid they fell on hard times and nothing is going to happen at leat for now. It is sad to know of beauty lost.

Murals in the Tennesse saloon

Tony used to do a lot of mural: cantinas in Mexico, chapels, homes, schools, even the University of Latin America accross the street of Diego Rivera...
This was was in Chloride and painted over when the Saloon changed ownership. The old Timers still mourn the loss of the at least 10/12 Meter long mural depicting the town and its in habitants.

Prison

Life never seems to have been easy for Tony. In 1965 he got stranded in Denmark on route to Sweden where his agent was iring him some money for work he had send him. In a park in Copenhagen he did a drawing. Somebody admired it, Tony sold it and got busted for 'selling a drawing without a licence and having insufficient funds. He was in Jail for six month, in solitary confinement. I guess he gave his opinion a bit loudly about the situation. When he finally appeared they gave him a fine which obviously he could. So they allowed him to sell his beautiful old banjo to the guard who had coveted it from the moment he laid eyes on it... He said this drawing he smuggled out of the prison. he went straight to Paris where he met his later wife.

AUGUST 4, 1931

Tony Mafia was born on August 4 in 1931 in Chicago, this is the oldest picture I could find. He considered himself a westerner however. That was the lifestyle he choose, that is where his family lived. Let us celebrate his life and work with all the good and the bad. He was as fallible as any human being... and gave what he had to give. He had a hard but interesting life.

The Golden Age of a Master

I titled this the golden age of a master as this painting is one of his most detailed paintings, every person in the back round has a distinct face. I love this piece out of my father collection.

Over the years my own connections to the paintings that hang in my house have grown. The more I look back on the fact that I had a well received artist as an almost second father, the more I come to realize the effect he has had on me. We take for granted many times the impact other people hold on our lives. I realize this now in the wake of Tony’s absence from mine. Growing up around Tony’s art and life has educated me in ways that I can only know just begin to understand. There was a time when I helped Tony in one of his drawings, now I am no great painter, but he still encouraged me to be creative. In recent years I have picked up poetry, which I feel is my way of painting a picture. But only now can I grasp that Tony was the one who encouraged me to go there. No other person had ever advocated creativity like him. No as my sheen eyes gaze upon his fingerprints, left for the world to see, I understand.
As I have looked back on my poetry, I realize that Tony’s life is buried under the words of my pen. In a poem I wrote titled “Heaven” a portion of my poem states, “An evangelic face shines, illuminating more than the moon / Fitting the furnace in my arms, my heart is reborn / Like a flower in bloom, I open to the heavens / Mouth strewn open, collecting the demon rum of the gods.” These words came from my heart and Tony had always told me to use my heart in everything I do. When I look back on this certain poem I come to realize that Tony is embedded in its words, just like he is embedded in my heart. If he could look at this poem from his own perspective today, I believe he would think that it’s about him. As I have learned from Tony, its up to the viewers to make their own choice about what a certain piece of art is about. Tony’s belief that everything had a story has carried into me when I write my poems. Tony passion will always be in my heart.