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