Tommy Macaione

PAINTER, POLITICIAN, PONTIFICATOR

Honored July, 1985

Tommy Macaione

Southbound motorists traveling down the Bajada on Interstate 25 toward Albuquerque may never have seen Tommy Macaione's masterpieces, but they knew how he felt about his work. "Messieurs Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh: Please step aside for Thomas S. Macaione, the new star of the world firmament. Let him bask in the light of world fame," the billboard proclaimed.

"El Diferente," and "Macaroni," as Tommy came to be known, arrived in Santa Fe in 1952. "It was Randall Davey's art school pictured in Life magazine and the great adobe haciendas... that attracted me to Santa Fe," he recalled. "The art colony looked like it would be an ideal place to go and settle, and maybe have a secure art life. But it turned out that Mr. Randall Davey had established himself as a great teacher. He was earning a good living. I, as an upstart, young fellow, had to work menial jobs. It was an awful hard climate. I starved mercilessly, you might say."

He soon found himself painting in the company of many of Santa Fe's noted artists--Alfred Morang, Randall Davey, Fremont Ellis, Gustave Baumann, and Will Shuster.

Born to Sicilian immigrants Maria and Joseph Macaione in New London, Connecticut, in 1907, Tommy spent his early childhood in Italy, when his homesick mother returned to Sicily with her four children. When World War I broke out, they were unable to return to the United States. Joseph was onboard a ship sailing to Palermo in 1918 when he contracted influenza and died.