Local valet’s artwork garners attention of celebs, Caesars

Kimberley McGee

Thursday, Dec. 7, 2000 | 10:40 a.m.

By day he toils at the valet station at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

By night he paints ballerinas dressed in pink, in thoughtful poses and abstract visions of color and light.

Tony Romeo has been parking cars and supervising the valet at the Forum Shops for the last seven years while working to become a well-known and, hopefully, well-paid artist

"I make good money and I have time to paint," Romeo said. "What more is there?"

Well, a lot more. He realized that his job parking cars put him in contact with the movers and shakers of not only Las Vegas, but art lovers from around the world.

"The United States doesn't just walk through this mall," Romeo said of the Forum Shops. "The world walks through this mall."

With his perseverance -- and self-assured charm -- his paintings hang in the Forum's Virgin Record store, Spago, the Crystal Galleria and in the front windows of the Versace shop.

Actor Mickey Rourke commissioned nine lithographs by Romeo, and the thirtysomething artist regularly commissions paintings to casino executives and art enthusiasts from Las Vegas to Atlanta who he meets through his part-time gig.

"The valet job has been a plus for me," Romeo said. "I get to know people I would never have known otherwise."

He struck up a friendship with local attorney Kirk Kennedy while parking his car over the years when Kennedy would stop in the Forum Shops for lunch.

Kennedy initially admired Romeo's work while eating at Bix's restaurant in southwest Las Vegas, but did not connect the artist with his day job.

"I made the connection and I liked his artistic style," Kennedy said.

Kennedy viewed other of Romeo's paintings at the Forum Shops and decided to commission a painting. "I think his thoughts and his expressions come out in the paintings and I really like his work," he said. "And he's a decent guy."

The art collector may be investing in Romeo now, but expects to see a return in the long run. "I see him going places, so I thought that it's probably not a bad idea to get this guy's paintings in my house," Kennedy said.

The contacts Romeo has made parking cars have built his bank account, but his personal marketing strategy and hard work have put his art in front of the eyes of those who can make things happen for him.

"I'm the only artist to get in those windows," Romeo said of his two paintings -- "Central Park" and "Street Scene in Italy" -- which hang in the Versace store front. "When you are in those windows it needs to mean something. I mean something."

Sunil Matwa, manager of the Versace store for 10 years, said that what began as a temporary window display by the persistent artist two years ago has become a lucrative deal for Romeo, as well as for the high-end store.

"He is very talented," Matwa said. "His abstract pieces are wonderful. People walk into the store because of those paintings."

Matwa knows of no other Versace outlet that displays local art, but the owner of the store (who wishes to remain anonymous) thought Romeo deserved a chance. His abstract paintings hung inside the store are regularly snatched off the walls by enthusiastic buyers.

"He's sold quite a few pieces and people come in and ask about the artist in the windows," Matwa said. "It's been a good deal for both of us."

Romeo says that with hard work and talent, anything can be accomplished -- truths he learned growing up in a small town.

Romeo was raised in Youngstown, Ohio, surrounded by a family of art enthusiasts. His father was a choreographer for off-Broadway shows and his uncle was an art professor.

He sketched regularly, but baseball was his passion from the time he was a boy, and he played catch in the front yard with his father.

The mill town was full of people who scraped by with little money after a hard day's work. Romeo knew he wanted more and pushed himself physically as well as creatively.

"Athletics took me out of there to do what I needed to do, and that is art," Romeo said. He attended Ohio's Youngstown University on a baseball scholarship and minored in marketing as something to fall back on.

And he did.

After a stint in the minor leagues, Romeo moved to New York to explore his artistic side, and then to Los Angeles in the early 1980s where he found his muse.

"I decided I wanted to paint what I saw," Romeo said. "It blew me away to go down Melrose (Avenue) and see all those galleries and all that art, I wanted to be a part of that."

He began where he started -- sketching. He moved on to paints and bigger canvases to express the energy that he felt when he brushed the color onto the canvas.

"My art is more a reaction than anything," Romeo said. "It's a mood situation."

His impressionist paintings show his calmer side. Reds and bold black lines in his abstract art depict his darker side.

He paints 10 large canvases a month in his kitchen-turned-studio, along with a few smaller pieces, and focuses on what he sees around him -- showgirls, couples, city scenes -- but prefers the freedom of abstract art.

"It's the shape in the composition and getting the eye to move around the painting is what I like," Romeo said. "It's more personal. It's you and the brush and there's no set pattern to it."

There is a set pattern to his life, though.

Discipline and structure keep him focused. He works out daily to help ease his mind and release some of his creative energy. One reason he was drawn to painting large pieces was because of the physical release of emotion on canvas.

Next to a big, red bowl of candy on his dining room table is a well-worn copy of the Bible a family member gave to Romeo before he moved West.

"I go to church every Sunday," he said. "It's important to me. Keeps me grounded."

He still represents himself and meets with clients who have seen his paintings or heard of him from friend who have visited Las Vegas, and sells paintings through word of mouth.

"I'm the artist, I have total passion," he said. "You have to have the hunger to get where you are going. Me? I'm going up, and Las Vegas is a great place to be if you want to make it."

He has heard the criticism of Las Vegas' art scene over the years, but pays little attention to the naysayers.

"I think that Las Vegas is due," Romeo said. "I want to be a part of it and I am by just being right here at the right time. That, and working it -- hard."

His paintings are priced from $3,500-$15,000 and he recently sold a piece to a casino executive at Mandalay Bay, as well as to a businessman in Los Angeles who saw Romeo's paintings while dining at Spago.

"Some paintings go up on the wall and sell that day," Romeo said. "But that's not everyday. I'm not at the point where I can live off art alone. Not yet."