Showing posts with label Markand Thakar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Markand Thakar. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2012

RIP Markand Thakar

[Photo by Thomas D. Ward]

The folks at Sophie's and Mona's passed along the sad news that Markand Thakar, a longtime regular at the bars, died this week. He was 82. We don't have a lot of details at the moment about a service or any possible celebrations of his life.

His artwork adorns the walls at both bars. He was a regular at the popular Tuesday night jazz sessions at Mona's. You've probably seen him there. And you'd remember having a conversation with him.

You can read about his life and work and view his art at his website, The Skunk Museum & Library. (We particularly like his oil paintings of bar scenes from the 1970s and 1980s.)

Part of his life, in his own words:

I've been asked, on numerous occasions, to explain the origins of my name and of my antecedents - and, just how did my parents, being of such different backgrounds, manage to meet? It has become obvious, that in this day of the American hyphenate, merely stating that I was born in New York City, on the 4th of July, in the fateful year, 1929 — and being the sixth child of a father born in India, and a mother born in Belgium, makes for an insufficient life history...

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After the drafting, during WWII, of my three older brothers, I began working as a gofer at a haberdashery that furnished the uniforms for Columbia's Navy ninety-day-wonders, then worked as a soda jerk — during which time I dropped out of High School. On July 18, 1946, shortly after I turned seventeen, I enlisted in the Regular Army and served for about a year in the post-WWII occupation of Japan. As a result, I joined my three older brothers as WWII veterans (all of us having served during WWII's emergency years).

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After my discharge, and over the years, I used up my GI Bill schooling allowance — during which time I worked at numerous jobs: soda jerk, bank page, RR dock worker, apprentice machinist, model maker — all the while, and from then on, I was more or less involved in the making of art. Then, from late 1953, before selling my business in 1974, I supported my wife, Betty Huber (a German Baptist, born in Meriden, Connecticut, in 1926, who was in the process of obtaining a Ph.D.) and our three children as a licensed customhouse broker and registered foreign freight forwarder. My wife of over half a century (now deceased), after obtaining her PhD. carried much of the burden of supporting the family — from 1974 on.

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We featured Thakar in a post this past Dec. 22.

[Photo by Thomas D. Ward]

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Markand Thakar


You may not know Markand Thakar, though it's likely that you will recognize his work. Several of his paintings adorn the walls of Sophie's on East Fifth Street as well as at Mona's on Avenue B.

Thakar, who was born and raised in New York, is 82. You can read about his life and work and view his art at his website, The Skunk Museum & Library.

The site is also full of his writings. Thomas D. Ward, who took the top and bottom photos on this page, offered this: "Those interested in a first-hand account of the New York art world from mid-century to the present will certainly find much to ponder."

You may also appreciate his vivid, street-level accounts of a native New Yorker in "Noo Yawk, New York." (You can access that work here.)

In addition to the website, he distributes his writing via pamphlets at the two bars the old-fashioned way ...

[EVG]

Depending on the day or time, you might even find him sitting at the bar at Sophie's or Mona's. (He's particularly fond of the Tuesday night jazz sessions at Mona's.) Why not say hello.


[Photos by Thomas D. Ward]