A Personal Annecdote

Dear Robert,

I was so pleased to see you wrote about Anthony Toney. He was my next door neighbor. I laboriously typed his PhD thesis for Teachers College as a trade for a double portrait. That was before Xerox, before computers. He required 5 carbons and if I made a typo error, I had to erase all copies separately. He was also very wordy, so the thesis was double the required number of pages. I had a two year old child at home, so typing, correcting, reading his handwriting, was doubly stressful.

First came a rough draft, for which he painted my two-year-old. It was a decent portrait, a commercial type, from one sitting and photographs. We were so disappointed. My husband determined to talk to Toney about it. I held my breath. I was in awe of the artist, and would never have the nerve anyway to say anything. My husband said we wanted an Anthony Toney painting, not a reworked the colors, the
background, the treatment on the same drawing, and we were pleased. That portrait of a 2-year old now hangs in my son's study near boston.

The final thesis was more daunting and longer. For this my husband and I sat for several sessions, no photos. We loved the painting. It was reproduced in an art magazine of the time. I have an old copy, disintigrating, but precious. And then he gave us the smaller preparatory study, which I have to restretch.

So you see, I was surprised to see you refer to him, and pleased that you called him an American master. I know he taught at Parsons for years, but I never got to take his class. Both his daughters are artists. Anthony lives in California near his younger daughter, Adelek.

Thanks for keeping me on your mailing list. Best regards. I hope to see you at open studio time.

- Rebecca Rikleen*
Tue, June 29, 2004

*REBECCA RIKLEEN was a student of mine at the Parsons School of Design in NYC in 2001. ~RC

PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN
Fairfax, California
2003

Photo: Daniel Dobers

With daughter Anita in front of
THE CIRCLE (1957)
in 2003 during the opening of
"Father- Daughter Retrospective"
at the College of Marin Art Gallery

The son of Syrian immigrants, ANTHONY TONEY was born in Gloversville, N.Y. in 1913. He graduated with a BFA from Syracuse University in 1934 and during 1935-36 painted murals for Gloversville High and Junior High schools under the WPA. 1937-38 he spent in Paris studying at the L'Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and L'Ecole Superieur des Beaux Art.

In 1938 he volunteered to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting for Republican Spain and was wounded in Gandesa. From 1942to 1946 he served in the US Air Force in the South West Pacific receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals with clusters.

In 1941 he presented his first one-man show at the Wakefield Gallery in New York City and had frequent solo shows at ACA Gallery on E. 57th Street in New York City from 1949 to 1987. In 1967 and 1971 he completed two murals for Syracuse University (see Man and Universe above). The Syracuse University Art Collection maintains numerous oil sketches made by the artist as preparatory studies for the mural.

After his return from the South Pacific, he married playwright Edna Greenfield. They had two daughters Anita, born in 1948 and Adele in 1950. The family moved to Katonah, New York in 1960 moved to Katonah, New York in 1960 and established large studio in a converted barn.

Besides teaching mural painting under the WPA in the early 40s, Anthony Toney spent over 40 years teaching painting at the New School for Social Research. In 1955 he received a Doctorate in Fine Arts and Fine Arts Education from Teacher's College, Columbia University. In 1991, Toney received TC's Distinguished Alumni Award and in 1994 there was an exhibit of 20 of his paintings at the Macy Gallery, which he donated to TC. He also taught painting at the Northern Westchester Center for the Arts between 1980 and 1996.

In 1986 Anthony Toney returned to Spain to be honored, together with hundreds of other veterans of the International Brigades, on the 50th Anniversary of the Spanish Civil War where the brigadistas were officially acknowledged and honored by the Spanish government for their contribution in the defense of democracy against fascism in Spain. The event is depicted in my painting "The Return", presently hanging in the office of Dr. Michael Nash, Head of New York University's Tamiment Library, home of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA). Mr. Toney is portrayed at the far left wearing a red beret.

 He has authored four books: 150 Masterpieces of Drawing, Creative Painting and Drawing, Painting and Drawing and, more recently, On Painting Realistically - A Memoir.

 

  His wife Edna having died in 1993, Anthony Toney is a recent California transplant, having moved to Fairfax from New York in 1997. The City Arts Gallery of the City College of San Francisco and the Fairfax Library presented a retrospective of his work, SEVEN DECADES OF PAINTNG, in 1998 and, in 2003, the College of Marin Art Gallery hosted "Father- Daughter Retrospective" featuring selections from eight decades of Toney's paintings as well as daughter Anita Toney's.

A PERSONAL NOTE
Many thanks to Anita Toney for her help and acquiescence in this heartfelt, if humble, tribute to her father. He may not remember who I am, but I'd still like him to know he is remembered, respected and admired by someone he made a deep impression on over a glass of wine almost 30 years ago in Spain.

~RC.