Painting in the street

Tony, while being in the air force, was stationed in Southern Germany. On one of his leaves he went to Paris. This was the early fifties and of course he always carried his paints and brushes. He ended up setting up shop on the banks of Seine. He liked to paint with an audience which didn't intimidate him at all. He either ignored them or danced in front of the canvas, doing a little show to entertain them. I don't know what, nor how he painted that day. Along comes a well dressed, rotund gentleman, who watches him for quite a while and a group of onlookers grows. Hear them whisper in French, hear a solemn silence and Tony probably joking in English, or commenting. When the gentleman with cane, goes his way, he turns to Tony and says: If you keep painting you could become a master. The group applauds and then some one asks: 'Do you know whom that was, that was Monsieur Henri Matisse!' He told me the stories several times, wondering why it mattered to him...
I think if you look at Matisse's work that you can see the way the both handled color and were free in the representation of their subject, without being abstract. This Crucifiction is in Harry Kegels' office, a friend and collector of Tony's work. The drawing was shown at Lineart 1998 in Ghent.

Freeing the Children

'Freeing the Children' is a recurrent theme in Tony Mafia's drawings and paintings. He used to say "our works are our children" and they had to move out in the world. He often wrote on his drawings, he also made me write on them. He liked the texts, but I couldn't write quite straight enough and thus I 'screwed up the balance', in his colorful words. Sometimes I would dictate the text, sometimes i wrote on the painting and other times he wrote them himself. In a while I'll post some of his texts, patience. If you click on this drawing, you'll be able to read the co-production of this gentle drawing which was shown at the retrospective in Kasteel Sorghvliedt, Hoboken, Belgium, 2003. Tony was insecure with his writing since he was dyslexic. Here in the texts 'there' probably was meant as 'their'... Although with Tony, one just never knew.

American Girl

With a little help of my kid, the Girl with the Jet black Hair and a Bow in her Hair, the painting Carol Levin loves so dearly, finds her way to the world. See yesterday's post.
Tony did paint several peace paintings in that dreadful period of the Vietnam war and later once in a while something would get to him and then had to paint about it. Tony was a registered democrat and cared about nature and the environment. Since he was a keen fisherman, he spend time in the wilderness and remote spaces. He was also a patriot: every time Tony's British friend and musician Dave Betts showed up, they had to recount the Boston Tea party. "We won", was always the conclusion in his typical Mafia way.

Girl with Flag

Today I am posting Carol Levin's story in her own words, the picture, however, couldn't be posted.

I will tell you a bit now and then send the picture on Sunday with the receipt from the art gallery. It's hard to believe that we paid around $200.00 for it. They gave us a 25% discount.
Well, here's the story. I'm just a suburban housewife from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. There was the Paul Olson Gallery in Tarzana that I used to haunt because I loved the art that they sold.
We were just getting into buying a bit of art and I had become attracted to the work of this really flamboyant artist who seemed to be spending a great deal of time there acting as a kind of promoter for his own work. He was really friendly and loved to talk art......and, especially his art.
It was 1970 and Tony Mafia..... of course, I told him that he was kidding me with that name..... was very attractive with all of that hair and, of course, he really looked the part of the artist that he was.
One day I came in and zeroed in on this beautiful large painting of a young girl with jet black hair and a large American flag as hair ribbon in her hair like the rebellious hippies of the day. I was absolutely drawn to it with it's vivid colors but, the steep price of $300.00 was more than I could handle.
I would come in again and again sometimes visiting with Tony, who would open drawers and pull out drawings and paintings for my approval. He had a bit of an artist's ego and would admire his work along with me. " That's a damn sensitive drawing." he once said in reaction to something he was showing me.
I found him to be very intriguing but, never knew the colorful life that he had lead.
But, I always returned to the girl with the jet black hair, and it became my ritual to " visit my painting." or, the painting that I couldn't afford.
You may have noticed that my e-mail is aug241957@aol.com. That is my wedding anniversary and August 1970 was the year of my 13th anniversary. My husband Dave wanted to get me something special. Unbeknown to me, he ventured into the Paul Olson Gallery. Surrounded by all of the art work, he was at a loss as to what to buy. He only knew that I spent a great deal of time there.
He described me to Paul Olson who knew me and said that I came in all of the time. Dave wanted to know which paintings I admired.
When he came home with this large completely wrapped picture my heart sunk. I was so upset. How could he have bought a piece of art without my input? Was I going to be cursed with some hideous picture hanging on our wall from now until doomsday? I tried to look happy and when I unwrapped it and saw that the girl with the jet black hair was finally to be mine I was simply overcome.
She has been gazing down upon us these many years and as this is to be our 50th anniversary on August 24th of this year, it just might be time to let her go. Thank you Annmarie for starting this blog. What a great idea. It is very interesting. I never imagined that Tony lived the life that he had.

Out of step

On my long trek back to Europe, I wondered how often Tony Mafia had done this crossing. He arrived in Antwerp for the first time when he was sixteen, seventeen years old. the city was still in post WW II ruins. He was an able bodied seaman at that time and had missed his ship out. It took him half a year to find another ship with the same company. He used his time well, visiting churches and the cathedral, spending time in museums and just be in the city. 'In Antwerp I learned from watching the paintings of Rubens that air has color', he used to say. He loved the gray light that gives depth. Of course by coming and going one becomes estranged at bit of the places one used to belong to. Hence the painting Out of step with the band depicting our unbelonging belonging in both continents. This mixed media work on heavy German etching paper was painted in Hoboken (Antwerp) in 1997. Tony definitely more American and I more European, marching together to or own beat... Clowns on the prowl.

The Garret Coffee House

Terrea Lea was kind enough to let me post her 'witness/friendship' account of Tony. So in her own words:
We opened 'The Garret' in late '58 and were there for 12 years. During that time Tony was there almost every night. He would come in grinning and being very friendly and warm. In fact, I think he broke my mother's ribs. He had been gone for a while and when he came back he was hugging every one and my mother who ran the cash register got up to hug him and he grabbed her and swung her around. He never knew he had hurt her. It was and accident done out of love and he would have felt terrible if he knew he had been a little too exuberant.
Yes, I knew Tony Mafia and was happy to be able to enjoy his work which hung in The Garret for many years. He was indeed a fine artist as well as a great person. We were always glad to have Tony show up to just sit around and talk or have him show us his most recent work. I remember so well when he returned from a few weeks in Mexico with wonderful drawings and paintings of children. He was very much in love with their beautiful brown eyes. I wish I had some of his work to pass on because I'm sure many would enjoy it but for some reason everything I ever had seems to have disappeared. I have moved a couple of times and I guess it was misplaced or passed on to someone else. At any rate I'm sorry I can't send you any pictures. Wishing you success and hope you can bring Tony Mafia and his talent to people's attention.

Not having any picture of the bug eyed children of the time, you do find a strong colorful Mexican Madonna instead.

Portraits

Suddenly there would be this urge, having to do a portrait. For his portraits he chose important people like friends, a drunk in the bar, a lady of the ways, a neighbor, a child in the street. He didn't do many portraits on commission. I can think of Cher when she was sixteen, because her mother asked Tony and Tony Curtis' wife, who didn't like the painting. He told me he put a red nose on her and sold the painting immediately. What is shown here are portraits of a friend Dave Hunzinger from Chloride. He was an entomologist, jeweler and also a painter. Sometimes they worked in Dave's studio where Tony made him sit for several portraits. Here in charcoal you see the man the way he was every day and in color Tony painted him while praying on the sabbath. He called it Hooglied, basically Salomon's song. The jewish iconography interested Tony having lived in Amsterdam and in the Herentalse Straat in Antwerp in the Hassidic Jewish quarter. That was in 1968. Back in Los Angeles he did a series of beautiful etchings of street scenes with rabis and orthodox jews. They were sold in the Paul Olson Gallery for 125 $, a steep prize in those days...


With thanks to Reta Huntzinger for letting me post Dave's portraits.