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

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.

Mexican indepence

That was title under which this picture of a double multi media drawing came to me. It is a pity I can't read the text, nor the date. It is a lovely piece, done in Antwerp, with oil and pastels on the typical heavy German paper he loved to use and of course a landscape in the background. There is one other oil on canvas with pyramids. You'll find it on the blog under pigs and pyramids.
Who knows more, I wrote yesterday and see, I was send a better picture and a tentative reading of the text.: So they sent there war and the venrion???? on our dislove. Lay next to lovers as the sky bled...

See the green snake of envy?

Some one is selling a Tony Mafia at Campo en Campo

	auction lot : 175 MAFIA TONY De cyclus van het leven. Le cycle de la vie Gemengde techniek. Technique mixte/papier. . Get. Sig. 1983 3 x 106 x 77 cm 5000/6000 €
	previous lot	These tree drawings are called the Cycle of life.

This piece was discovered on the internet by Jim VL, a dear friend who still cares about Tony's work. The caption underneath is from the seller. As far as I can tell it is accurate. Thanks Jim.

This is a gorgeous modernist work by well known contemporary artist (and personality) Tony Mafia (1931-1999); recently recovered from a Los Angeles estate. Fine  art galleries sell pieces by Tony Mafia for several thousands of dollars but this fantastic work is being offered at far below what you would find in any gallery. Tony Mafia's works are known the world over. He lived in Los Angeles, Tijuana, Mexico, Antwerp, Belgium, etc - and counted numerous celebrities and notables among his collectors and friends. Paintings of his hang in fine museums throughout the world, including: The Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; Chicago Art Institute; Museum of Mexico City; Boston Museum of Modern Art, etc. Please read below for specifics regarding this piece.  

Angels

Once in a while we all needs angels. When Tony did, he just drew them or took his guitar and sang to them. This is one of the easels in the corner house in Hoboken. He had three there, all rather big. He often worked at two pieces at the same time , usually in very different styles, but with the same basic palet.

Nude

This is a monoprint, Tony would put oil paint on glass and make one print. He liked to use the haphazard effects of chance. He cherish the problems this created to do something worthwhile with it. This lady and lecherous faun stems from 1975.

Poison

In 1998 there was a major flood in Antwerp and surroundings and our address having been Lageweg 431 in Hoboken we were thoroughly flooded out. Tony saved the two dogs floating on a chair after coming home from the hospital and the factory must have opened some lines which they shouldn't have. The result was a poisonous slme, sludge clearly visible after pouring out od the factory. This paper was tainted by it and Tony painted the appropriate subject on it: Poison. He cared about nature, was a fisherman and wanted the water to be clean. He wasn't the best recycler though. He also loved his cars, the excuse being his getting out of breath when walking too far. This piece was in the retrospective of Hoboken 'A brush'.

Children of a clown time

This is the oldest work I have by Tony Mafia. First we knew him as a singer/busker in Antwerp. He knew how to seduce a guitar. In August 1968 we met him with his wife and young son in the market. He invited us over and we admired his drawings. That was the day of the beginning of a collection. This is a mixed medium. The text reads: The children of a clown time stand alone to remove the false, to grab at any bud or blossom, to stay his weight, some to compare and to find one or the other of a less or unfulfilled promise, still alone to sit and dream of a tomorrow spring.

Mixed media

Here you can see what I mean when I say that a drawing is a mixed medium. The basis here is water color, then a few lines are in oil pastels, a structured circle is in oil, there is some pen and Chinese ink and the drawing is finished in pencil. He did this drawing for a friend in Chloride Dave Hunzinger and Reta let me show it to you. A dream for Dave June 1997.

At work

In Chloride, Tony starting up a double mixed medium in the studo. And the seccond drawing a short while later. He worked very concentrated, fast. He would joke I am the fastest brush in the west... Circus, the arena of life, the studio the battleground, here his moods and feelings came to life on the canvas. Sometimes he would go back and back to the same canvas or drawing, change it, living with it.

The caling of color

This was a drawing Tony cared about. The full text is: To say the calling of paint would be to tell you of them that live in and around color. It is obviously a self-portrait while at work on a canvas. It also shows his beloved nudes and the black sun that is his secret Native American signature.

Drumming you up

A mixed medium drawing with a lot of writing around it. Some of it about the pale rider, death. I o not know what happened March 17 in 1987, maybe another heart episode e was trying to forget in a girls arms. Part of the text: I can only tell you a story are you to ??? of a blue eyed mermaid and or and to return a nine mile under a PAIL pale pael rider to carry my soul to peace as sound the drum of never. Yes fear of death often accompanied Tony, looking for redemption, or peace of mind.

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.

Double piece

Sing a feeling among the players is the title of this double piece of about 160 cm wide 108 cm high: two pieces of German etching paper. Tony's mam had been a very pretty lady, she had worked as a chorus girl and a dancer in Las Vegas, in the Old Pioneer, in the Thunderbird among others. They had a few good nights on the town together when he was younger. The lyrics around the drawing reads...... a memory I feel the mothering of the often painted mask of beauty hung, lirics of the night at the ever crowd of morning, evenings, night alone in dance. He painted this salute to his mother on October 22 1989. Of course the singer is kind of Tony himself with his favorite guitar, bought for him by Dale R., a long time friend.

In the window they are

A series of paintings owned by DL will be shown here, put in the window so to speak. I thank him for this opportunity. This is a 1989 drawing, with the Arizona landscape in the background, an angry dog and indeed people looking in. This might be a Las Vegas painting when he still was in the La Brea Gallery or briefly after that. I seem to remember DL gave Tony a Shell gas card. So Tony was always mobile and could get milk and stuff at the gas stations...

Romance

The last post about bullfighting wasn't really very Political Correct, but then Tony never was. Here he is sensuous, romantic, gentle. The drawing consists of four pieces of of German etching paper put together so that the size would fit his mood. Note the two harlequins behind the naked lady.