True story about Miroslav Tichý

Mr.Miroslav Tichý's family moved into our neighbouring house when my mum was eight and Mr.Miroslav four years. His parents and my grandparents had very good mutual neighbourly relationships. Miroslav was an only child and he grew up like other children. At the Kyjov Grammar School, his talent started to be expressed but his life was still a casual one. After having finished his studies, he left for Academy of Fine Arts in Prague which he did not finish and returned back to Kyjov.

I remember him from the beginning of sixties when he stopped to shave and to cut his hair, he wore the same clothes all the time, a brown suit and afterwards his famous brown tweed overcoat.
When we were children, we were afraid of him at first. He addressed us once. He had a very pleasant voice and innocent blue eyes. And thus our friendship began between Mr.Miroslav, me and my brother Jiří, one year younger. Mr.Tichý was like our older brother. He rode a bike with us, ice-skated on a local creek, played theatre shows for us. Later, when I and my brother studied, he made exhibitions of his paintings at the courtyard. He also showed his photographs to us. But we especially enjoyed long discussions on art, history, politics.
He went in a different world view than the official was, however, he was not a fighter against the regime, he differentiated by his appearance and behaviour.

Doctor Roman Buxbaum was an only child, too, he lived in Prague and as a small boy he used to go for holidays to his grandmother’s who lived in our street and was at age of contemporaries of Mrs.Žofie Tichá, Mr.Miroslav’s mother. In 1968, doctor Buxbaum’s family emigrated to Switzerland. At the beginning of eighties, doctor Buxbaum came to Kyjov for several short visits. He always stayed at his grandmother’s some three days and then went to Prague. A small town was not interesting for him. He certainly met also Mr.Tichý who always talked to us about him. Mr.Tichý did not cherish doctor Buxbaum anywise. I can remember clearly how he talked about Roman Buxbaum suffering from kleptomania, that’s why his father used to go to visit a psychiatrist with him twice a week, although, it did not help. Toward the end of nineties, doctor Buxbaum appeared in Kyjov again, together with a cameraman, and he was shooting his film for about three days. Mr.Tichý was not keen about that, they interrupted the shooting several times. At that time, Mr.Tichý was already beginning to drink a bit, so a small drink settled everything. Actually, doctor Buxbaum started to be interested in Mr.Tichý in 2002 when he visited me and wanted to buy all photographs from me. He did not say what his plans were, only that he wanted to keep the collection altogether, wanted to protect and preserve the photographs. I sold him a part of the photos, both because I believed him and wanted to get free from him. Doctor Buxbaum manages and uses manipulation with people perfectly, he knows how to urge vehemently.

In that situation he also wrote documents, a confirmation that he, himself and the only one, cared for Mr.Tichý, he, the only one, had the right to spread his work and he let me sign it. It would never occur to me that he would present those scribbles of him as official documents. An attentive reader cannot omit a peculiar style and celebration of Roman Buxbaum. Who knows Mr.Tichý must recognize at once that information in these documents cannot be true. Doctor Buxbaum liked to let me talk about my experiences with Mr.Tichý which he pretended to be his own. Thus, for example, he usurped ‘the retired Tarzan’. I talked to him that one day Mr.Tichý was swinging on a rope in the courtyard and I told him that he was like Tarzan and he answered, laughing, that he was Tarzan but the retired one. And there are plenty of such stories which cannot be known to Roman Buxbaum as he was never living in Kyjov for a longer time.
The whole of his story is based on falsity. Mr.Tichý never agreed with his exhibitions, never gave him either any camera or any other device and he even insists that he never gave him any photograph.

As far as ‘Tichý oceán’ Foundation is concerned, doctor Buxbaum declares everywhere that the foundation supports social and culture activities in Kyjov. It is not true. The foundation does not support even Mr.Tichý. And ‘Artists for Tichy and Tichy for Artists‘ project is an absolute camouflage which Miroslav Tichý, the author, does not know anything about and doctor Roman Buxbaum has come into a considerable collection of contemporary arts through it.
I know really a lot about Miroslav Tichý, we have been in a close contact with him for many years and now my family has been taking care of him for about nine years. I would hardly manage it without the help of my husband and my daughter.

Jana Hebnarová