Miroslav Tichý (1926-2011) was a reclusive artist who resided in his hometown of Kyjov, Czech Republic, for most of his life. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and seemed on the path to becoming an esteemed modern painter. By the late 1960s, he had begun taking photographs, mostly of local women sunbathing, with equipment he built himself, including cameras crudely made of cardboard, bottle caps, and rubber bands. Tichý mounted his photos in handmade frames and embellished many of them with pen and pencil markings. Tichý was frequently arrested for hanging around the local pool and snapping pictures of unsuspecting women. With time, the locals grew accustomed to his presence and would often welcome having their photos taken. His soft-focus, fleeting glimpses of the women of Kyjov are skewed, spotted, and badly printed due to the limitations of his primitive equipment and deliberate processing mistakes meant to add "poetic imperfections." Tichý continued to live in Kyjov, suffered from dementia, and had to be taken care of by his neighbor. He most likely destroyed most of the work he produced during his life.

Miroslav Tichý (1926-2011) was born in Kyjov in the Czech Republic, where he lived. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Tichý’s photography was first shown in Harald Szeemann’s 2004 Seville Biennale, where he won the “New Discovery Award.” His work has since been shown at major museums, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France; the Kunsthaus Zürich in Switzerland; and the ICP in New York, NY.

In 2005, a group of trustees created The Tichý Ocean Foundation on the artist’s behalf to preserve and exhibit his work.