“I went with another guy. Trains were very cheap in Italy then. He worked in the boiler room at the camp, had some money and bought two tickets to the border. We had plans from people who took the road before us. We arrived at the border. Near Como, in the valley, we crossed the motorway at night. There was a fence along the motorway but the gate was unlocked. We climbed the embankment but didn’t know whether we were in Switzerland or still in Italy. We walked left. We saw some customs house, so we ran in the opposite direction. When the fence ended, we climbed down and walked into the first village, to the railway station. It was Switzerland. We had some money and a contact to Čep in Zurich. In Zurich, we were collected by some people sent by Čep and they took us to Germany.”
“Why have you decided to emigrate?“ – “Because of a simple reason: I couldn’t do my job. The perspective was quite clear. We told myself that if we remained, we might work as castle wardens, get out of public attention, get three casks of beans and survive somehow. Romantic ideas like these. But it wasn’t a realistic scenario. Had we stayed in the country, we would have probably drunk ourselves to death. Unfortunately, I didn’t know languages. Naturally, we went into the unknown, but there was a kind of opportunity at least. Here, it was all cast in lead, you couldn’t move here.”
„I met Moucha at Kyncl’s, Kyncl functioned as a very important cultural point in the artist diaspora. He had a great talent for putting people together and organising them, so it was at his flat that I met Moucha. He arrived from Paris with sculptor Škoda and they brought some manifesto. It was a time when everybody was writing something. And they travelled along galleries in North Rhineland - Westphalia.” “What they had in it?” – “Some artistic statement. I don’t remember what was in it and I don’t want to remember. He then returned to Paris and I later used to visit him. I went to visit him in Paris three or four times. And he stayed with me for some time in Düsseldorf. There was a sponsor named Stockheim in Düsseldorf and he had a catering business. He sponsored artists by providing them with a studio, some money, a place to stay. I remember that he helped Kotík. And also Moucha, who stayed with me for about half a year, so we had discussions, drank and went to see exhibitions.”
“In the 1960s, artists had excellent conditions here. They built their studios, Malich among them, they had work all the time. Koblasa, for instance, got a huge job at the airport. You could say that artists had an exceptionally easy life. I worked as a stonemason and didn’t get the commissions. I did minor stuff in Pilsen, things like a memorial plaque. On the Charles Bridge I did stones, the stone balustrade. Balustrade on top – that was more quality work, and the dripstone – that was very top. It was quite fine before I went to Pilsen, to the Fund of Artists.”
“I arrived from Pilsen two days before the invasion. I spent the night in Michle, at the flat of sculptor Minařík, a friend from Hořice. At night there were shots suddenly. We rushed to the Wenceslas Square and spent the day running around Prague. We went to the Castle, where we saw Sudek, standing and observing what was happening. We met a work colleague, a person responsible for stonemasonry budget. He carried a carton of cigarettes and said: ‘Guys, go and get cigarettes. You won’t be able to buy any shortly.’ The shops were empty, they just had sour milk in bottles. You kept thinking about emigrating all the time. I had planned to go to France but before I decided they closed the borders. Later I wanted to go to Yugoslavia, but it was really difficult to get the approval. I wasn’t successful.”
“What was the study in Düsseldorf like?” – “Exceptionally good. No horrors like there are today at similar schools, when you have to write something all the time, some doctorates etc. Absolute nonsense. You had a studio and you could simply work. There are many people who deal in with something that already exists, there are too many of them, they need to do something for their living, so they keep inventing pseudo-jobs etc. This what the times are like now. In Düsseldorf I could be in the studio even during holidays, any time, on Sundays… I had a studio, it was warm inside and I was given a scholarship. We had the excellent professor Krike. Also Graubner, Beuys, all of them great artists. No average or terrible teachers. I could do absolutely what I wanted to do.” – “What is it that the professors gave to you?” – “Mainly I was given the opportunity to do something. You got into the academic environment, the centre of artistic life, you don’t enter it from the outside. In this the school was very beneficial.” – “At that time you mainly drew and painted?” – “Yes, I used to paint. I had a flat and there I could no do sculpture. It was actually before I went to the school. I did some portraits in the theatre. I got to the academy mainly through my painting. I had some photos of stuff I had done. There were no exams like they are here when you have to create something in just a few days. There you had an interview with the professor, you showed him things you had done and that was it.”
Jindřich Zeithamml was born on March 25, 1949, in Teplice. Since fourteen he studied the Secondary School of Stonemasonry and Sculpture in Hořice. In 1967 he trained, for one year, as a wood carver in Prague and, at the same time, served as an intern in the Pilsen-based studio of Jiří Hanzálek. In 1968 he joined the Academy of Art in Prague but was expelled from study just after a year. In 1968 to 1969 he made his living as a stonemason on the Charles Bridge. Then he moved to Pilsen and worked in Hanzálek’s studio. He made his living as a free-lance sculptor within the Czech Fund of Art. In 1972 he emigrated to Germany via Italy. In 1976 to 1982 he studied in Düsseldorf at the State Academy of Art with professor Krick. He had his first exhibition in 1980. In 1985 he was awarded the Gustav Poensgen Prize, next year he received the Hilly stipend. After the fall of communism he shuttled between Germany and the Czech Republic, in 1988 he moved to Prague. In 1995 to 2016 he was a professor at the Academy of Art in Prague.
