A comment by Christopher Vipond Davies

He writes: I knew Tony back in 1965 in Paris. We played and sang together in a would be cowboy bar. I had left Britain a few months before to "find myself" and in St Tropez I had found I could make a basic living singing in the cafes. After moving north to work in the champagne harvest I gravitated to Paris. At that time, I didn't have a large repertoire and probably wasn't so good, especially at handling people who requested songs I didn't know. The boss like Tony but had reservations about me, but Tony insisted we were a pair. "I’m Just a Country Boy" - Music by Fred Brooks, Lyrics by Marshall Barer - written for Harry Belafonte and now associated most with Don Williams was a favourite song of his, he played in with a rising chord sequence. He wanted to go to Spain, I wasn't sure, and we parted, shortly later I went to Italy. I've always remembered him, also his great art, in those days I remember mainly ink drawings with colour was, a very immediate impression of a moment a place. I was very sad when I Googled him some time ago to find he'd passed on, but happy to find him so comprehensively remembered. I was reminded of him again last Saturday: I was singing n the street in Amsterdam, where I live, not far from the Rembrandthuis and an artist stopped to chat, and mentioned he'd known Deroll Adams who I read had known Tony, and all the memories came flooding back. Am working on finishing a song about him, based on Country Boy, wanna sing it on Tuesday at a meeting celebrating the UN Day of Friendship.

Thank you Christopher for this nice testimony.

Clowns in Amsterdam

I was contacted through a comment on this blog and asked to send a picture and some extra information. 
So Hans wrote: Hereby a picture of the Clown. I haven't got a photo of Winnie the Pooh, as it is currently with my daughter in the UK. I did not meet Tony personally, but a friend of mine met him in a bar in Amsterdam and I bought these two works via him in 63/64. He seemed a bit down and out at the time, so I heard. I am prepared to sell. Kind regards, Hans.

I think this is a pastel drawing. I would be interested to know it's size and whether it is beind glass. Tony was in love with the circus and did several drawings and large oils about that theme.

So if  you are interested in acquiring this piece, send a comment and I'll get you in touch with Hans.

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.

Antwerp Jews

These two etchings are from Antwerp when Tony Mafia lived in the Korte Herentalse straat in the Jewish quarter, in 1969, leaving Antwerp with his then wife Anna and their two children half of January. Tony Mafia was fascinated by the different appearances. I seem to remember there were four different etchings in all. I saw the smallest one, not included here, being priced at $ 125 in 1979 in his Gallery in Los Angeles. Sorry I forgot the name of the Gallery.
If you're interested contact: jott777@cox.net
702-450-3288
She is located in Las Vegas

Aldo's Memory

 The attached picture sets the clock back with 27 years and takes us to – probably-  the most favorite place in the world of any 5-year-old; the city fair.

Seated in Tony Maffia’s neck, I stare at yellow, plastic ducklings which are swimming in a water bassin of one of Antwerp’s “finest” carnival stands.

The prices, which we can gain by catching as many ducklings as possible, are extremely big and colorful , almost disproportional to what we are asked to do in exchange for receiving such a trophee.  

The ducklings have challenged us. We both feel the adrenaline rushing through our vains and, as we take a deep breath, we know which adventure lies ahead of us.

I guess this best gives words to what I thought of Tony. In my eyes he was never the person I see on the picture today; a white-haired man at least fifty years older than I was.

Rather, I saw him as a contemporary and an accomplice who was ready to discover the world with me. At the time, I was too young to relate my fellow adventurer Tony to ‘Tony Mafia’, the painter. He was extremely young at heart and always ready to share both my happiness and sorrow.

 As I grew older, I realized that Tony had captured our mutual spirit for discovery in his paintings.

To this day, every painting of Tony remains a discovery to me; in color, in pattern and story. Every time I look at one of Tony’s works, I notice something different. Every time I stare at his paintings, I see something new.

And, like the picture attached,  such a painting takes me back 27 years in time. Back to being that 5-year-old boy, ready to catch as many fair ducklings as he can.    

Aldo de Pape

Thank you so much Aldo!

Ken Post's Tony song

TONY MAFIA

HE WAS PAINTING                      

ON THE STREETS OF PARIS 

HENRI MATISSE PASSED HIS 

WAY IF YOU KEEP ON PAINTING 

LIKE THAT YOU LL BECOME A 

MASTER ONE DAY

AND HE DID BECOME A MASTER 

BUT  YOU ’ VE NEVER HEARD HIS

NAME HE MUST HAVE BEEN BORN

UNDER AN OBSCURE STAR

 BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE HE 

STAYED

WIH THE INTENSITY OF   A 

TOREADOR POISED WITH 

PALETTE AND BRUSH  DANCING 

IN FRONT OF THE CANVAS 

PAINTING WITH A LUSH TOUCH

MIGHT BE A LYRICAL PORTRAIT 

OR A COMPLEX STORY              

ONE DAY HE SPUN AROUND     

AND HE TOLD ANNMARIE 

REMEMBER ME 

BY MY BRUSH STROKES

HE LOVED A ROLLICKING DIRTY 

DITTY AND A PASSIONATE 

SPANISH STRUM 

IF YOU TOLD HIM

YOU LIKED HIS SHIRT HE’ D TAKE 

IT OFF AND GET A NEW ONE

I’ M IN THE COLLECTIONS OF 

SINATRA AND THE ENGLISH 

QUEEN HE’ D SAY THEN GO OUT

AND SING FOR HIS  SUPPER , 

BUSKING IN THE

REMAINS OF THE DAY

WHY SOME BECOME

RICH AND FAMOUS IS A 

CURIOUS THING TO SPECULATE 

WE ALL HAVE OUR INDIVIDUAL 

MAGNIFICENCE AND THEN

ITS UP TO FATE

SOME ARE BORN                         

IN THE BACK OF TAXI CABS 

OTHERS IN STABLES  

ON BALES OF HAY       

TONY WAS BORN              

ON A POOL TABLE IN LAS VEGAS 

WHEN HIS MAMA DROPPED HIM                        

BEHIND THE 8 BALL

BORN BETWEEN THE IRISH      

AND THE CHEROKEE              

LIVING BETWEEN THE DESERT 

OF ARIZONA AND THE SWAMP 

OF ANTWERPEN BELGIE

SCATTERING HIS SEED AND

SPATTERING HIS PAINTS 

 LIVING IN THE PRESENT 

WITHOUT RESTRAINTS

SO RUMORS OF TONY ’S  DEMISE 

CIRCULATED EVERY FEW YEARS 

BUT WHEN HE DIED IN ‘99 THE 

STORIES OF HIS EXPLOITS 

BROUGHT LAUGHTER AND TEARS

ANNMARIE TOOK HIM BACK TO

THE DESERT WHERE THEY 

LOWERED HIM INTO THE EARTH

THEN ALL WATCHED AS THE 

WIND PICKED UP , SWIRLED & 

CARRIED HIS SPIRIT BACK TO 

THE PLACE BEFORE HIS BIRTH

 Thank you Ken for your testimony.

Tony's helpers

Ah, good taste, what a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness. -Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor (1881-1973.

I start with this quote because it might be felt to be not  too elegant what I am about to write. A series of people have stood steadfast by Tony Mafia's side during his life which has known many down and out periods. I want with this post to honor these friends who provided him with a means of transportation, who kept him fed, whom he cajoled when his children came to Antwerp so that he could feed them and show them a good time.
In random order I honor: Anke and Sam Nassi, who traded a painting for a car, Dale Root who gave him a very good guitar when he didn't have one, Doug Lyon who let him have his Shell gas card. This is not publicity for the oil company but it was one of the brands where one could by milk and sandwiches before it became a normal thing. He kept Tony fed during a a long time. Doug would also slip him some money. Then in Belgium Paula and Wim van Hees who ended up with a nice collection of Tony's work.  Jim Van Leemput, Guy and Anne Sijssen, the dentist who did Tony's teeth in exchange for drawing and painting classes. Arnold De Paepe, the veterinarian who would give him prescriptions for his heart medication. I should not forget the people of Antwerp who threw a coin in his guitar case when he was busking in the street, often not even making enough money for a meal in 'Het Hofke'. Friends of friends who bought a drawing, the collector Harry Kegels who has a wonderful collection of Tony's work, sometimes being given the drawings or oil, other times when Tony really needed the money  paying a fair prize. The hookers of Antwerp who made their John's buy a drawing for them and thus kept Tony's rent paid. I am sure I am forgetting people, I am sure I don't know all the people who showed kindness toward him.  Yes, he was often a starving artist, living in the dumpiest places without heat... Or alone in a tiny trailer on top of a mountain because it was only 75 $ per month. And even then loosing the land for non-payment...

These are facts.  The story of Tony's life is his story, and he told it well, stylized and lighthearted. Were they lies? I think it was  the truth as he saw it.  Other people involved in his life may have a very different take on what happened, may have had other expectations of him. He was not an easy person, yet most people who met him, where touched and came out a better person with more beauty in their soul.

Whisky-A-Go-Go

Gia wrote: Hi Tumbleweed - I am in possession of three Tony Mafia pics from my parents who owned the Whisky-A-Go-Go in the 60's. How can I find out about these paintings? Thanks.
That was the question I was asked so I asked a friend who was there when it all happened.Dale's answer: On the corner of Sunset Blvd. & Doheny Dr. near the west end of the fabled Sunset Strip, up until 1962, there was a Music Conservatory, where folks went to learn and practice dance, music, the physical arts. A fellow named Bill Gilbert bought it, 'cause he had an idea to start a nightclub which would attract neat young ladies after work, where he would give them a 'club' where they could freshen-up, come down a flight of stairs into a nightclub, making whatever kind of an 'entrance' they liked, and be served a free drink and snack food. His idea was, 'Where the chicks are, the guys will follow'. Great concept, but for a lot of reasons it didn't fly. Meanwhile, the disco rage was going in the east, with pole-dance-type chicks gyrating in cages, so Elmer Valentine, who owned and ran the Interlude, a club on the Strip upstairs from another famous LA nightspot, the Trocadero, joined with Phil Terrazini, who owned and ran the Losers, a hot spot on La Cienega Blvd just a block down from the Strip, and they bought the failed Party (Bill Gilbert's failed club), and turned it into the Whiskey a Go-Go (known as just 'The Whiskey').

While it was the Party. Bill had hired (used?) Tony to decorate and do paintings for the club, and I don't remember why, but one day while it was just being started to be built, I wandered in, and somehow got inveigled into doing the sound system for the place. Tony and I hit it off, and one day we got to feeling pretty good, and he was looking at my almost new '61 T-Bird convertible, and asked me if I'd like my car painted. I said. 'Are you nuts?!' The paint is perfect.  (It was a medium to light blue). He said, 'No, I mean I'll paint it'. At that time, you could still buy lacquer paints, so we went to an auto supply store, and Tony picked out about six or eight different colors (Blue, White, Green, Red, Yellow, etc.) of half-pint cans of lacquer. Then we spent the afternoon up in the upper back parking lot of what is now the Whiskey (Which was designed as where the chicks would come into the Party women's club house), and Tony painted ladies, dancing girls, horses, flowers all down both sides of my 'Bird. This was way before kids were putting daisies and doing wild paintings on vans (except, maybe, for Ken Kesey), and the car attracted a lot of attention. In fact, the first time we took it across the border, it was as if we were leading a parade down the main street of Tijuana. Back to the Whiskey: The opening act was (damn, I can see him in my mind, and hear him, but can't remember his name. A little guy, but he could sing, had several top hits, you can probably look him up), and the crowd was great, Girls were dancing in cages suspended from the ceiling, the music was rocking. guys were picking up chicks in multiples to go somewhere and ball, chicks were picking up chicks and couples, and vice versa, it was a swinging place, long before the NY scene. Funny vignette, a couple of guys I knew from Hewlett-Packard were just developing the very first home TV tape-recorder/cameras, and gave me a demo to take to the opening, which was in the after noon, and I set the camera up on the balcony overlooking the front entrance and stage (Which at that time was right in the front corner of the building, exactly on the corner of Sunset and Doheny.) A lot of Hollywood type s came to the Party with their chicks and assorted ladies, and after a while, when they noticed the camera, a bunch of them went bananas and threatened to 'Burn this F***ing place down if you don't get rid of that camera and destroy the tape'. Everyone loved Tony's paintings, and I'm pretty sure that when Gilbert sold the place to the Whiskey, he sold a few of those works, and I doubt Tony saw any of the money. At that time, Tony had an apartment above a drug store on Santa Monica Blvd, just a few blocks east of Doheny, so he could easily walk, not only to the Party/Whiskey, but also to Doug Weston's Fabled folk-music club* which was right adjacent to the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Doheny Dr. where Tony was Master of Ceremonies for the Monday night Hootnannies, where folks like Judy Collins, the Smother Brothers, and Joan Baez, et.al, used to perform when they weren't out on the road. Good times, Thanks for bringing back the memories. Tony was poor (financially, as usual) but you did not have to feel sorry for him. One morning I came in from Vegas, and picked up a couple of bags to food to take to Tony at that Santa Monica Blvd. apartment. He usually left the place open, and I knew where he 'hid' the key, so after I knocked and he didn't answer, I walked in and started putting stuff in the fridge and cupboards. 'Hey, what's up', I heard, and turned around to see Tony's head above the back of the couch. 'Just bringing you some breakfast and other stuff', I said'.  'Cool', he said, and 'Meet Darla', as a beautiful lady's head rose up next to his from the couch. 'I know her', I answered, for in the sack with Tony, gratis I'm sure, was the most expensive hooker in Las Vegas, at the time.
* the Troubadour.

For questions about the paintings, you need to send a picture of them and we'll figure out what we can tell you about it. Post a comment with your e-mail, I reply.

Terrea Lea II

Just read your post on Terrea Lea you sure did your homework. Nice. Do you remember this piece? I believe I sent it to you before with a question weather or not she could have been the subject. I think it looks very much like the only picture of her that I have seen. Only thing is the signature is spelled Tony Mafia. It's old enough that I thought it could have been done at a time when Tony was still perfecting his pen name. Note the earrings and necklace. What do you think?

I think you are right, Joe. It looks like an early piece, chalk on paper... Thanks for sharing. Tumbleweed

Chloride (for Bret)

Chloride would drive Tony into a frenzy. This painting is proof of that. On a dark stormy night, rain gushing down, he got 'restless', 'crazy', 'anxious'. What the feeling was that would grab hold of him at those times. He tore out a piece of boarded fence and painted these Indians, which he gave away the same night to Ken F. Some people he took to immediately, like to you Bret. Talking and listening, joking on the back porch were good and cherished moments. I too learned from you, your voice and turning on the preacher as a demonstration... I hope you are well. If you post a comment with your e-mail, I'll reply to you and then erase the comment to keep your mail private. I hope that works for you.

Place de L'Ancienne Synagogue

Staying in a hotel at the Place de l'Ancienne Synagogue, I thought of some of Tony's quick scetches of people he saw in the streets. These are feltpen drawings with sure lines, probably stemming from the late sixties or very early seventies. Amsterdam or Antwerp may have inspired him to to these. He lived in Antwerp in the 'Lange Herentalse Straat', right in the Jewish orthodox quarter. He was intrigued by the hair and beard, the dress, the people...

Music and drawings

Chuck Johnson said:
After fifty years, I decided to look for Tony Mafia, and it appears as if he is deceased.
I used to talk to Tony from time to time in a coffee shop in New York. The two of us, along with a small group of other enthusiasts, used to rendezvous there to listen to Augustin de Mello, a self taught Flamenco guitarist. Augustin made an LP recording not long after that time, and I have an autographed copy of the recording. Augustin never gained much fame as a guitarist, but he did gain some notoriety as the father of the supposed genius, Adragon De Mello, who was attending college at age ten. As I recall, Morley Safer interviewed Adragon for a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes back in the late 1980’s.
One of the members of our group was the starving Cuban artist, Arnaldo Ravelo Avellaneda who was a friend and lover of another Cuban artist, Angel Acosta Leon, who was still in Cuba at that time, before Castro’s revolution, while Batista was still President of Cuba.
In the fall of 1959, in Cafe Roue in New York City's Greenwich Village, I had a conversation with Tony about art. I was carrying a 9” x 12” pad of drawing paper, some chalks, and a marker pen and trying to sketch a girl who sat a few tables away from us. My efforts were clumsy and juvenile, and Tony said that I was trying to be too precise. He asked to borrow the pad and chalks and, in a matter of minutes, proceeded to draw the girl in a Picassoesque style that amazed me.
He then tossed off another drawing. This one was of a nude standing with an observer looking away from her, and quickly thereafter sketched a seated nude. After that, since we were listening to Spanish Flamenco music, he sketched a toreador standing in the traditional killing pose, with his sword drawn. A few minutes later, in the most detailed of his drawings that night, he sketched what appears to be a Spanish “Don.”
I don’t remember what Tony’s employment was at the time, but it was not as an artist.
He drew these five sketches in less than thirty minutes, and he made them so quickly and professionally that I asked him to sign them. I also suggested that he should become a professional artist.
Tony pooh-poohed the idea, and said that he wasn’t interested.
I had been in New York only to take courses at The New School, and when the semester was finished I left New York and returned to George Washington University.
I lost track of Tony after that, but I kept his drawings with me through many moves and corporate transfers, Puerto Rico, back to Washington, then Dallas, Chicago, and Kansas City.
I re-discovered the drawings while going through memorabilia after my wife died.
I don’t have photographs of these drawings, but, if anyone is interested in seeing them, I will arrange to have photos taken.
May 15, 2009 4:27 AM

With thanks to Chuck, Arlette's picture of Tony and 'reflexivity.com'