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[Couple on Bench]

Miroslav Tichý Czech

Not on view

Few photographers are as difficult to place in a historical context as Miroslav Tichý, an eccentric Czech artist trained as a painter. Here, a young couple embrace and enjoy their privacy on a bench in a small town in Moravia. They are seemingly alone, save for the photographer working far across the park with a partially homemade camera. Tichý outfitted it with a homemade shutter and a telephoto lens cut out of a sheet of Plexiglas ground with sandpaper and polished for clarity with toothpaste and cigarette ash. That the artist could generate any images at all with such a jerry-rigged contraption is a miracle.

[Couple on Bench], Miroslav Tichý (Czech, Kyjov 1926–2011 Kyjov), Gelatin silver print

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