Anthony D. Saunders ’83

Tony died July 11, 2024, at 63, of complications of prostate cancer.

He was a New York City kid, attending Trinity School all the way through high school in his own neighborhood, the Upper West Side. Interested in the arts and music from an early age, Tony majored in art history at Princeton and pursued a career in painting. He also played guitar and keyboard, with a strong interest in ambient music achieved through the synthesizer. He shared his exuberance for life and music with his many friends at Terrace Club while at Princeton.

In the early 1980s, abstract painter and sculptor Sean Scully was a visiting professor and an influence, and Tony went on to become his studio assistant in lower Manhattan after graduation. Tony’s commitment to abstraction led him to develop his own distinctive themes that can be seen at his website tonysaundersart.net.

In 2010, at the age of 50, Tony earned a master’s degree in social work from Hunter College and started working in eldercare, with a focus on creative arts. His guiding ideas about art being a life force available to all served him well in nurturing the elders he cared for.

Together since 2001, and married in 2020, Tony is survived by his wife, Anne Russinof, and his daughter, Thelonia, from his first marriage.