The Whiskey A Go Go and Tony Mafia

Thank you John for the additional information provided by your mam.  I gladly post it here:

"Your Dad does seem to remember buying this painting from him because he really needed to eat, and was willing to sell them for about $100.  Knowing your dad, it's hard for me to believe in the 1950's or 60's he would spend $100 for a painting.  A hundred dollars was a LOT of money then.  But on the other hand, he had just done Al Capone, so maybe he was.  He members Tony was at Schwabs Drug Store, on Sunset and Laurel, where everyone in the industry went for breakfast or lunch to maybe make a connection or be "discovered."  He thinks Tony was there because he was sort of an actor.  But reading about the Whisky, I think Dad's story made sense because Schwabs was the day-time place, and the Whisky was at night. "

This information corroborates Tony's stories about that period of his life. Dale Root also remembers Tony doing the first Go Go cages at the Whiskey A Go Go.  And yes he was kind of an actor being in a few Perry Mason issues. At the Whiskey there was supposedly also a painting hung with the back of the painting to the front and only one way of seeing it when one went to the bathroom. Also it should be repeated here that Tony did present many of the hootenannies at the Troubadour in the sixties and was part of the group "The men". I sat in a conversation when Steppenwolf came to Laughlin, Nevada between Danny and Tony remembering the Doug Weston and Troubadour days. Tony used to tell me that John Kay always lost his glasses on stage, glasses he absolutely needed.

John,I thank you for your efforts and I am afraid I learned more from you than you learned from the blog...

A girl from the sixties

John wrote: I've attached a photo of the painting. I'm trying to get in touch with my Dad to see if he remembers Tony or how he acquired the painting. He used to barter with a lot of the artists in Venice Beach and Santa Monica in the 50s and 60s.  If he has any stories, I'll be sure to pass them on.

The painting itself was either in my parent's home or one of their friends I stayed with as a young child. It used to scare my sister and me a LOT! When I grew older, it had a very nostalgic feel to it and when I saw it in storage I HAD to have it. I always thought it should have been -- or maybe even was -- used in Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" TV series.

I would LOVE to know more about this painting. If you have any information, I would be very appreciative.
Dear John, it really looks like a nice sixties painting.




Rod Sterling's name was mentioned by Tony. he also said that many paintings were used on sets for TV or films. If you have a chance to see  'Story of a hit man' with Jack Palance, you would see many paintings from that period. And banter on the beach seems just right. There was a family in the seventies who paid for his ticket from Antwerp to LA on the occasion of their 300st painting by Tony...  That too would be a story to follow up on.

Lady with a banjo

Laura was kind enough to send this picture and the following text:

I grew up with this painting in my home. My father bought it and another similar one of a woman and baby years and years ago. We live in L.A., and it is in a similar style to the Torero painting on the blog. So, I'm assuming from the same time as that one?

it is on canvas. 24" x 36". as is the other one.

Dear Laura, thanks for sending this picture and your story with it. To my best knowledge I would place this painting at an early sixties. He was still in a rather decorative phase with big eyes. Yet the background already shows many characteristics of his later work: the abstract flowers, the small doll like figure and the red abstractions. It certainly is a nice piece. I am wondering however that on the picture I can't see a signature nor a date, which is rather unusual.

PS. Laura send me the picture of the signature which she had cropped off and it certainly is his handwriting.

The Circus

Tony lived in the circus, saw the circus and was the circus.
He was half cowboy and half Indian, a man from "Faraway"
a creative creation of humanity.
He lived under a tent of friendship with mainly poets, buskers,
hearts with a message and clowns.
He didn't like preachy people and politics and was not a man
of compromises.
He knew that grown-ups were nothing more than full grown children
and he remained young until the end.

Watercolor, Antwerp, 1983

Spain-Espania

Tony was in love with Spain.
He resonated with the vibrations of the duende of the flamenco.
He felt the sorrow of the civil war in his heart.
The bloody rain in this masterpiece is a witness of this sentiment.

Yet there us a sheepherder  with a staff, in Andalousia. Maybe it was also about caring. Dreaming about a kind woman. Missing Spain.
He lived for half a year in Casares, Andalusia. A strange town, where the three witches in black still brew their potions...

Antwerpen 1987

The Juggler

I fear I hear the Juggler
near the crying juggled
and all the time my world
is but a still yesterday

Tony
mixed media on German etching paper 1988- definitely a distorted self portrait... Is it about a love lost, a mess up in his life or fear and thus fear of death... Beauty drinks from deep and dark sources sometimes.

Bieke's painting and memories

When I was a young one, living in Antwerp, I fell in with a group of American expats. We all were drawn to The Folkcenter and The Matthijs, where Tony, Deroll Adams, and Norris held court. Those were the years when I took a little dip in the waters of folk singing myself but soon found out that I didn’t have the nerves to be a performer.

So, I crawled back into my pen.

Then I went and lived in England for a year. Tony went off somewhere. When I returned to Antwerp, he had come back as well. He would come and visit me and I would spend hours listening to his stories. He also played guitar for my baby son, who has grown into quite an accomplished guitarist.

One day, talking to Tony, I told him I was looking for a gift for my parents. The next time we met, he presented me with this painting of a mother and child. When I wanted to pay him, he refused the money. That was Tony: a golden heart, a wonderful painter, and a great story teller both with his guitar and with words.

I left for Canada, after that. He went god knows where. One day, about thirty years ago, I happened upon him as he was busking somewhere in Antwerp. Still Tony, still doing the same thing, still true to his inner voice. We talked for a while. Then a good ten years later, I was visiting Antwerp again and there he was again, at the same spot, busking. It wasn’t as if he had been there all that time. No, he had just come back from the States and I was there, as usual, for a short visit and on a rare occasion when I was not being driven by a family member.

It was one of those wonderful twists of fate.

This time he invited me to visit with him and, that evening, I reconnected with Annmarie, whom I hadn’t seen since those youthful days of the Folkcenter. I must say that I feel privileged to have known this man and to have called him my friend.

 And I am delighted to be able to visit with him on this blog.

Bieke Stengos (Cammaert)

Trail of tears

Nunna daul Isunyi

High mountans over the land of our fathers

were good to die

1838 Tears from my people

Singing "Amazig Grace" untill the end.

Saving the native future on the way to Oklahoma

Tony was partial Cherokee on his fathers side and was interested in all things Native American. His brother Bill found in Blythe,California a bunch of black and white pottery shards, older than black and white shards known before. He often felt unaccepted by other Native Americans, being rather fair skinned. He cherished his history however. This painting is a mixed medium: oil and pastels. He has done many other paintings about The trail of Tears. This wonderful drawing is in Antwerp, other pieces are in the USA.

Tony Mafia

Antwerpen 1983

Muziekdoos

Zo lang geleden
Tony was my friend,and has been my inspiration ever since we shared a life in Antwerp with Tommy
and Sonja,Robin Rowley, Mieke and Eric, the two Ingrids,Vivien, Fidler John, Callum, Paddy Tinsley,
Vera of the mural wall, Frederica and the kids......the nights at Etiene's "Muziekdoos", the Billekletser
where I cooked, Dave Greerley, Scots Greg.......six memorable years on another planet, zo lang
geleden...........

As I now tell of that time to my teenage daughter, she finds that whacky world all hard to believe.
She trawls the Internet and returns yelling "it's all true, I found Tony Mafia" I am indebted to her I.T.
skills to help me with this blogpost.

I heard of Derrols death on the radio just a couple of years ago, and of Tony's just last night.
For those of you who are still out there - please contact me -
mike@thegreatyokshiredragon.com
I am one of a team that run a mad venue in Hull, come visit www.facebook.com/hullboathouse

Mike Stone
This nice drawing is from 1982, pen and ink, Antwerp
It shows the buskers, with banjo, flute
The text reads: Just a bit more shit, but I must start somewhere...

Mother and child

Watercolor, Antwerp, 1983
Flowers and field...

Guapa de Anversa

Found where she was lost
Waiting for you
in tenderness and blue


Oil 1992, painted in the Kloosterstraat.

End of Romance

Tony was an artist with a restless soul.
Whenever he was confronted with challenges and setbacks he found consolation in his home country.
Every time he left he had to say goodbye to a lover and this was food for his creativity and work.
This painting shows the unbearable pain and sorrow of saying goodbye.

Oil painting 1983, Antwerp, in the distress of a break up

For a friend

Double piece on paper, mixed media.
Antwerp 1987.

can you see

Give me death and a dragon then my eyes can close,
I give this and all of yesterday careing.
Can you see.
Antwerp 1982
In that period Tony painted a lot of 'Punks'. Anything visually different would stimulate his mind and lead to new pictures. Death was a constant companion in his thoughts, not only because of his heart disease, but also because of his experience when Shanghai fell WW II being there with the merchant marine as an able bodied seaman.