Torero

Dear Attila, thank you for your questions about Tony Mafia and this particular painting. From your description of the support (a kind of board with canvas on one side) for the painting I gather that he painted it in the United States. Probably in Los Angeles, California, in a period that he didn't have a real canvas and was a strugling artist without funds. It definitely is an original and a fairly early work I think, based on the way it is painted. I would say it is after his stay in Casares in Spain. The painting seems to be in good condition. That, the subject, also the size decides the value. A collector of Tony Mafia's paintings or a bullfight lover, might want to spend some money on this canvas. Bullfights were certainly a recurrent theme in his work. He loved the flamboyance and the vibrant colors, the life and death issues dealt with through beauty and ritual. I would put a 5.000 $ price for a particular sale. It may take a while however to find the person who would fall in love with the painting and willing to invest his money in Tony's work. I know for a fact that after the stay in Casares he had a show in Rue St. André des Arts in Paris with Spanish and bullfight paintings and that the show sold out. I heard it a couple of years ago from the Gallery owner Madame Besnard. So it might be a good thing for you.

Bullfight

In 1969 he did this charcoal drawing. He painted there for the gallery of Françoise Besnard. That was a few years after Tony Mafia had spend several months in Casares in Andalusia. His stay there has deeply influenced his later work. We revisited Casares in the late nineties and the town was eerie to say the least. Here the human protagonists of a bullfight is shown.

Toreador

See the sword in the background? This is a continuation of the bullfight theme. I spoke to a friend of Tony Mafia who has actually seen the bullring he painted in Tijuana. It was indeed done probably late fifties and splendid and special. It was still in good shape in 81. So is doubly sad I never got to see it. There were also facades of houses in Tijuana Tony put murals on: two stories high in magnificent colors. Here it is pen and ink and probably a sixties drawing...

Bullfights

This bullfight scene in an arena reminded me of something Tony told me. I am not sure when but the story goes that he painted the whole bullring of Tijuana. In Tony's rendering it seemed to be in the fifties maybe later. He had several colors of oils on his pallet, a few buckets of paint which he threw on the stuccoed wall of the bullring. The Major got angry till the moment Tony with his brushes pulled out the figures and brought the painting to live. The Major is quoted as shouting: 'Viva el maestro pintor!' I have never seen it, since when I was in Tijuana a long time ago the bullring was closed. It is probably lost by now.

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.

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.

Four O'clock Red Sun

This Tony lithograph press is titled "Four O'clock Red Sun." Its number 11 out of the series of 12. My father bought Tony a lithograph press years ago, as I have found out, it was one of three presses Tony had. For Tony to live he would sell a drawing or painting and buy a bag of food. My dad has always been a kind man. After their initial meetings my dad started to pay for some of Tony’s painting supplies that Tony could not pay for, like the press. Tony had no job…he was an artist. That was what he devoted his whole being to. To my father, Tony showed a pure devotion to a craft. He had never met anyone in his life then or now who had such a vision. Tony would just sit by the window, letting the warm sunshine dance on his white hair while gazing at a fresh stroke of color etched by a master onto a piece of canvas, giving birth to his artwork.

This is the other piece that hangs in my room. I can see the influence Mexico had on this piece. The bull and the horsemen with a Mexican style hat. Now that is just my opinion as my father doesn't exactly remember when Tony did this series of lithographs.

Spain

Tony loved Spain, all aspects of it Flamenco, the country side and the bullfights. The colors of the costume and the high octane drama was probably what drew him to portray again and again the bulls, matadors and toreadors. You'll note the costumes are right. He knew because he went with Betty Ford a matadora for a while. They lived in Mexico for a while where she was touring. He left her when she turned out to be 'braver' than he was when one night in Mexico city some bandits burgled their house and she went after them with her sword. From the dentists collection. Sad eyes are a specialty of Tony...

Mexican and Spanish Paintings

The five O'clock Sun, when in the arena the bloods drips from the sword and the bull is slain...
Tony Mafia has often stayed for longer periods in Spain and Mexico. He worked for instance during six month in Casares, near Malaga in Spain. There he painted a whole exhibit in 1964, which sold out completely upon showing in Paris in Madame Besnard's Gallery. We met her in probably 1997, confirming all Tony's story about that period of his life, this was my impression of that meeting:

All is changed
nothing stays the same
but the street
on which the changing
walk until words
of past
hurt
for lack of a tomorrow

The fading star
of laughter lost
hears but the
murmur of memory
on rue St André des Arts
meeting Madame
Françoise Besnard

The small white village of Casares, with its bizarre soul surfaces now and then again as in “The lady with the goat”. Furthermore he knows bullfighting, Flamenco (he plays a mean guitar), the gypsies and the dance from the inside, the rendering of which are consequently never trivial, superficial or touristy. In these themes we once again find the freedom of expression that is given by “the costume”: the traje de luz of the bullfighters, knowing full well that the picador is important and that the toreador and matador wouldn’t stand a chance without him. He really lived the bullfights because he 'went' as a young man with I seem to remember Betty Ford, a lady matador and toured parts of Mexico with her... Guitars, peasants and multiple warm-blooded women are depicted, but also the thread of Death. To counter this, very often life is painted in full and robust color.


Of course Don Quixote and Dulcinea have to be there as well.