Michael Anthony Caprioni passed away Dec. 3, 2022. He was an artist and musician.
Born May 11, 1951, and raised in Monmouth County, Michael loved to play the piano as a young boy in his childhood home in Atlantic Highlands. His love of the arts would expand and take him across the country and back throughout his life.
He graduated from Middletown Township High School in 1969 and traveled to San Francisco, California, and Taos, New Mexico, where he studied and worked for famous Navajo artist R.C. Gorman at his Ledoux Street gallery. Moving back East, he held odd jobs at the Clam Hut in Atlantic Highlands and the Lily Tulip factory in Holmdel, and later studied dance and liberal arts at Brookdale Community College.
Michael’s struggles with mental illness made it hard for him to pursue a career, so he would write his own music and record it to cassette tapes, build sculpture in the living room of his apartment, and share art lessons and supplies with people in the parks near the Shrewsbury Arms Apartments where he lived in Eatontown. He worked part time at Jos. A. Bank and also the Wawa in Red Bank, so access to affordable healthcare was always a challenge. In 2018 Michael was diagnosed with Stage 4 renal cancer and was given a prognosis of 18 months. Medicaid took over, and luckily his immunotherapy proved very effective – he enjoyed a four-year remission while at Anchor Care Rehabilitation Center in Hazlet where he continued to create art and music for as long as he was able.
Michael died suddenly and peacefully in his sleep at the age of 71.
Predeceased by his loving father Tony Caprioni, he is survived by his loving family: mother Rina DeLisa Caprioni, beloved younger brother Anthony Caprioni, dear sister Renee Caprioni Moreau, and brother-in-law Kenneth Moreau, all of Matawan, favorite older brother Mark Caprioni and his wife Victoria of St. Paul, Minnesota, and many more aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, whom he dearly cared for and loved.
Michael’s favorite musician crush was Lady Gaga; it would make him very happy if people donated in his memory to the Born This Way Foundation at bornthisway.foundation, or to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) at nami.org.
A memorial service is planned for the warmer months of 2023.Â
The article originally appeared in the December 15 – 21, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
