Celebrating the life and work of longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen

Anton van Dalen with his pigeons from the documentary "Anton: Circling Home." 

 Photo by Anthony Lindsey. 

Longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen died in his home on June 25. He was 86.

P·P·O·W, the gallery that represented him over the years, is hosting a celebration of his life and work this Saturday afternoon from 2-4 at the SVA Theatre, 333 W. 23rd St., between Eighth Avenue and Ninth Avenue.

Organizers encourage folks to RSVP, which you can do via this link. 

As P·P·O·W stated: 

Immigrant, humanist, artist, activist, educator, and lifelong pigeon keeper, Anton van Dalen dedicated his life to documenting the Lower East Side's evolution from dilapidation to gentrification in paintings, drawings and sculptures that, as the critic and poet John Yau states, "arose out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."

RIP Anton van Dalen

Photo by Anthony Lindsey from the documentary, "Anton: Circling Home"

Longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen passed away in his home on June 25. He was 86.

P·P·O·W, the gallery that had represented him over the years, announced that he died of natural causes in his sleep. 

Some background on his life and work:

Van Dalen was born in Amstelveen, Holland, in 1938 to a conservative Calvinist family during World War II. He began rearing pigeons at 12, seeking solace in the companionship of a community outside the instability around him. 

Enraptured by the magic of their flight, van Dalen saw his own migration journey, from Holland to Canada and ultimately to the United States, reflected in the migratory nature of the birds.

After arriving in New York's Lower East Side in 1966, before ultimately settling in the East Village, van Dalen served as witness, storyteller, and documentarian of the dramatic cultural shifts in the neighborhood.

While active in the alternative art scene in the East Village during the 1980s, van Dalen began his career as a graphic designer. Working as a studio assistant to Saul Steinberg for over 30 years, van Dalen learned the stylization and design aesthetics that would ultimately ground the visual language he used to discuss the culture around him.

Van Dalen became known for his Night Street Drawings (1975–77), a monochrome series of graphite drawings documenting the surrounding Lower East Side with tenderness and empathy, including vignettes of car wrecks, sex workers, crumbling buildings, and more.

As poet and critic John Yau wrote, all of van Dalen's work arose "out of a meticulous draftsmanship in service of an idiosyncratic imagination merged with civic-mindedness."

Van Dalen lived at 166 Avenue A — the PEACE house — between 10th Street and 11th Street since 1971. He documented the changes there in this post for EVG. 

His flock of snow-white pigeons from his rooftop loft were a common site in the nearby skies. (Photo from 2015 by Grant Shaffer.)

We had the great pleasure of meeting van Dalen several times, first over a dinner at Odessa. We appreciated his kind, thoughtful manner and deep affinity for the East Village. He shared several dispatches with us over the years (see the end of this post for a selection). 

Van Dalen was especially upset about the 2013 demolition of the Mary Help of Christians church, school, and rectory on Avenue A between 11th Street and 12th Street, which made way for the block-long Steiner East Village condoplex. 

He shared this photo and sketch for a post in August 2013.

The  neighborhood's transformation was a common theme in his work, as seen in his one-man performance piece "Avenue A Cutout Theatre," which featured "a portable model of his house, which he uses as a staging ground for telling the story of the evolution of the East Village."

He first performed the Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and The New York Historical Society. 

As he wrote in a post for EVG in October 2020: 

I consider myself a documentarian of the East Village, yet I am a participant and spectator to its evolution. Began documenting my street surroundings in 1975, urged on by wanting to note and remember these lives. Came to realize I had to embrace wholeheartedly, with pencil in hand, my streets with its raw emotions.

Van Dalen is survived by his older brother, Leen van Dalen; his two children, Marinda and Jason; their spouses, René van Haaften and Ali Villagra; and three grandchildren, Cleo, Aster, and Diego.

P·P·O·W said that memorial service announcements will be forthcoming.

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• One East Village family's protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine 

• Documenting 166 Avenue A through the years

• Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

• Anton van Dalen's Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre 

• Down On Avenue A, 1922 

 • On St. Mark's Place, 'this parable of neglect' 

• Anton van Dalen's pigeons, connecting us back to nature above Avenue A 

• The 'senseless shocking self-destruction' of Mary Help of Christians

One East Village family's protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine

At the request of his daughter Marinda, longtime East Village-based artist Anton van Dalen created a protest sign for her to carry during a rally in support of Ukraine in Times Square last Saturday. 

Given his migratory history (he has long kept snow-white pigeons on his roof ), Marinda suggested that he paint a Peace Pigeon. (His Avenue A home has also long featured the words P E A C E written in abstracted geometric black lettering out front.)

And later...

And now, a family friend has put the "Peace Pigeon" on T-shirts for sale online. About $8 from each sale will be donated to Voices of Children, an organization in Ukraine working to help families in this time of crisis. 

You can find the T-shirts online here. 

Said Anton in an email:

"When we in 1971 arrived in this East Village neighborhood it was still a vital immigrant population. Its larger mix was of Ukrainian, Polish and Italian heritage, their cultures so shared with us. Now those populations are slowly fading away and their children have moved on. Their restaurants, spoken languages, music, and beautiful colored flags have largely fallen silent. But their cultural contribution live on in us all, and our neighborhood history to remember," he wrote. "Now I am pleased to honor Ukraine's national flag colors as their Peace Dove." 

 Top two photos by Marinda van Dalen

Documenting 166 Avenue A through the years

I always enjoy receiving correspondence from Anton van Dalen, the artist who has lived on Avenue A between 10th Street and 11th Street for decades. Here's the latest dispatch:

Sending you photos of our home at 166 Avenue A, of its over the years evolving facade appearance. The photos cover a span of now almost 50 years of my observing and documenting our neighborhood.

Came to this address in 1971. Before we lived at 123 Rivington St. near the corner of Essex Street.

Initially I just watched and listened to the street life, its sidewalk theater with joyous salsa music. It was not the New World that I had imagined as child growing up in Holland — no streets here paved with gold. Rather streets paved by the colors of many cultures. 

On first arrival our new home looked abandoned, hardened by history, burned out house next door. And by contrast, a storefront church on the other side, often crowded with multigenerational Puerto Rican families. 

Today our Puerto Rican community is marginal, as neighborhood's demographics radically changed. As my below succession of photos illustrate, the creeping ongoing gentrification of our neighborhood.

I consider myself a documentarian of the East Village, yet I am a participant and spectator to its evolution. Began documenting my street surroundings in 1975, urged on by wanting to note and remember these lives. Came to realize I had to embrace wholeheartedly, with pencil in hand, my streets with its raw emotions. 

Also the everywhere discarded bloody heroin needles on sidewalks stunned and urged on my thinking. The drug dealers, the junkies, the police, the firefighters, were then the unquestioned royalty of our neighborhood. 

Then came hopeful efforts by gardeners in garbage-strewn abandoned lots, squatters, community organizers. They were able to redirect our devastated neighborhood toward again being a community for many. 

So my documenting became more and more informed by the stories of my neighbors' acts of activism. And a commitment on my part to be true to those lives, of their raw heartfelt emotions, birthed on the street. 

Their truth telling kept my work honest, brought authenticity to my documentation, so critically important. That my work needed to join the raw birth, speak for, this sad beauty born on our streets, and not to forget.

Postscript:

One of Anton's drawings, titled "Street Woman on Car" (1977) and posted at the top, has been acquired by the Whitney. That drawing is included in a show there now titled "Around Day's End: Downtown New York, 1970-1986." This exhibit closes on Nov. 1.

Anton is pictured below with the exhibit's curators, Laura Phipps (left) and Christie Mitchell (photo by Grace Keir).

And details on the drawing: "Street Woman on Car" (1977). Graphite pencil on paper, sheet: 22 3/4 × 29in. (57.8 × 73.7 cm). Purchased with funds from the Drawing Committee 2016/7. © Anton van Dalen

Previously on EV Grieve:

• Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

Anton van Dalen, drawing in isolation

[Photo by Jason van Dalen]

Anton van Dalen, the artist who has lived on Avenue A for decades, recently sent me an email with some new drawings.

Throughout March, he said that he worked to put his learning about COVID-19 on paper by pencil.

Here's more from his letter, which he invited me to share along with his work:

My thinking and drawing are intimately linked — it’s my means of coming to understanding.

I have always worked from the perspective of home, then street, neighborhood, city, world. So we learned that COVID-19 came to envelop every dimension of our private and public life.

Events rudely stirred up my still emotionally scarred childhood memories of World War II Holland. And as more and more military language has come to be used to halt the spread of the pandemic.

I wanted my visuals to center on the East Village, and began the drawings at my Avenue A home. But then family and friends, because of my age of 81, thought I should get out of the city.

Came to understand that I should listen to my children and retreat to the countryside of Long Island. Through their generosity I was able to turn my scribbles into accessible drawings.

Throughout my effort I worried about being appropriately thoughtful about this most serious matter. So I learned from family and friends, also daily news reports about the virus and its implications.

But then I also had to integrate mine and everyone’s frightened inner self into the drawings. Still I was concerned, not to be frivolous or satirical, rather keep the subject big, and myself small.

Time of 'War' for East Village artist Anton van Dalen

Longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen is exhibiting with the P.P.O.W. Gallery at the Armory Show this weekend.

He's part of a group with five other P.P.O.W. artists. The curated theme: War.

"Included is this enormous canvas, which I painted in 1982 ... will be thrilling to see it there," he said in an email. "For me it's one of these freeing moments where intuition, 37 years later, finally flowered."


[van Dalen in 1982]

This part of the Armory Show is at Pier 94, Booth 717 (between about 50th Street and 54th Street across 12th Avenue). . Find more details on the Armory Show here.

The show continues through Sunday. Hours: Friday from noon to 8 p.m.; Saturday from noon to 7 p.m.; Sunday noon to 6 p.m.

Find of a preview of the Armory Show at Gothamist.

Tonight on Ludlow Street: Anton van Dalen's Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre

Longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen is performing his Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre tonight.

Here are some details via the EVG inbox...

This time it will take place at ROMEO, 90 Ludlow Street, on the 5th floor by elevator. Doors open 6:30 pm, performance 7 pm.

My one-person exhibition there remains on view until Sunday June 19. Exhibition open Saturdays and Sundays 12 noon until 6 pm.

Second exhibition is at Sargent’s Daughters and closes coming Sunday June 12. Its location is 179 East Broadway, open Wednesday through Sunday. The hours are from 12 noon until 6 pm.

He first performed the Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions, including The Drawing Center, the Museum of Modern Art and The New York Historical Society. Read more about the performance and its history right here.

'The Devil's Veil' debuts tonight

Longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen has a new exhibition debuting this evening titled "The Devil’s Veil."

The exhibit will be up through June 19 at Romeo, 90 Ludlow St. (between Delancey and Broome). The opening reception is tonight from 6 to 9. Find more details here.

Down On Avenue A, 1922

Anton van Dalen shared the following with us this week...

Ever since my settling on Avenue A in 1971, I have been collecting the neighborhood's history. That gathering is of diverse interest with ephemera and artifacts of all kinds. It includes vintage press photos, flyers, maps, architectural salvage, street signs, etcetera.

One of my favorite finds is this sheet music of 1922 titled "Down On Avenue A." The great cover image in style, fashion and attitude still looks contemporary, timeless.

As now with impending summer the down on Avenue A sidewalk parade has started anew.

You can find more details about the music here.

A Christodora House flyby

Anton van Dalen's pigeons out for a spin this afternoon... Photo by Grant Shaffer

Time for Anton van Dalen's 'Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre'

The art of longtime Avenue A resident Anton van Dalen is currently on display at the P.P.O.W. Gallery in Chelsea.

As part of this, van Dalen will show "Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre" tomorrow evening at 7 in the gallery.

Here's a quick overview:

van Dalen uses a portable model of his house as a staging ground for telling the story of the East Village. Employing a rotating selection of miniature cut-outs, stencils and props, Van Dalen narrates the history of the neighborhood from the 1970s (when he moved to Avenue A) until the present. The performance centers on Van Dalen’s Avenue A rooftop pigeon coop he has nourished for more than 25 years; a source of pride for Van Dalen who began raising pigeons as a child in the Netherlands. There he flies a flock of white pigeons that circle around the storied tenements that housed generations of immigrants, like himself, witnessing the neighborhood’s gradual gentrification.

Avenue A Cut-Out Theatre was first performed in 1995 at the University Settlement House on the Lower East Side and toured throughout the United States and Europe. The performance has been shown at numerous institutions including The Drawing Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and The New York Historical Society.

P.P.O.W. Gallery is 535 W. 22nd St. between 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue. His work will be up through March 14.

Previously.

New works from East Village artist Anton van Dalen go on display tonight in Chelsea

[Stromboli Pizzaman 2011-2012, oil on canvas, by Anton van Dalen]

Longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen begins a month-long exhibition of new work tonight at the P.P.O.W. Gallery, 535 W. 22nd St. between 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue in Chelsea. (The P.P.O.W. Gallery started its life in the East Village in 1983.)

The opening is tonight from 6-8. The work will be up through March 14. Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

And an Anton van Dalen sneak preview via his website…

On St. Mark's Place, 'this parable of neglect'

The photo and text are courtesy of longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen ...

This scene compresses several histories of our neighborhood, a history of slash and burn economics.

Many of us were in a state of disbelief when a 7-Eleven opened at 35 St Mark's Place, but then the chain store imploded in just 18 months. Removal of the 7-Eleven signage reveals that JAS Mart, the Japanese grocery store, had been at site before.

And asleep in front on a sliver of sidewalk the homeless person, completing this parable of neglect.

I have noticed that certain addresses seem doomed, repeatedly turning over tenants and each time ending up abandoned, suggesting that some landlords have no clue or curiosity about the needs and subtleties of our neighborhood. Each time the renovation will take about a year, causing turmoil with neighboring businesses and community.

Anton van Dalen's pigeons, connecting us back to nature above Avenue A

[Photo from January 2012 by Shawn Chittle]

In case that you haven't seen this... Serena Solomon at DNAinfo has a nice feature today on longtime East Village artist Anton van Dalen and his flock of snow-white pigeons that are a common site in the skies above Avenue A between East 10th Street and East 11th Street.

"The flying is spectacular, and of course it connects you back to nature in a way that many of us in the city don't have," said van Dalen, who moved across the Atlantic from Holland as a young boy, following World War II.

Van Dalen, who has always felt a deep connection to his birds, took up pigeon keeping after learning it from his father and his brothers when they lived in Holland.

Check out the video here too. Find Anton's art here.