Mirography

On 15 February 2009 Ivorypress held an exhibition about one of the art world’s most recent discoveries: Miroslav Tichý (Czech Republic, 1926), a photographer who has spent his whole life in absolute anonymity, not because the world hasn’t taken any notice of his work, but because he has ignored the world.

Tichý is a legend of his own time, a man who renounced all aspects of the art market and, in fact, consumerism in general. His marginal attitude led him to make his own cameras from recycled materials found in the street and in rubbish bins. This is one of the details that defines him and also forms part of his work. The cameras used by Tichý are made from old bottles, cardboard boxes, tins and other rubbish to create imprecise images, blurred figures that appear to be materialising out of a dream. But when you see his portraits of women, there is no doubt about the influence of his academic training as an artist at Prague University and about his real vocation: painting.

His images show swimming pools, picnics, races, women sitting on benches, etc. His work contains a balance between the intrinsic natural beauty of each woman, an almost innocent eroticism, and the blurred images captured by the defective lenses of his homemade cameras. The setting is always the same: his native city of Kyjob, where he has spent the last thirty years.

Images: © Nigel Young. Courtesy Ivorypress