Antonín Vojtek

* 1934

  • "One evening someone knocks on the door. And who do I not see... My friend, the husband of the teacher I used to teach with in Zaječí, who brought a man, a strong and sturdy man. And they introduced themselves to me, that they were both State Security. Not that they startled me, but it was strange. And that they were going on a friendly visit to look at pictures and paintings. They looked and that if they could come tomorrow too. I said why not. And so they came day after day after day until after a week it came out that they needed help. That they were hearing about me, that I was being visited by all kinds of people, even from abroad, and even that I was friends with a Polish woman. I said that wasn't true. Nevertheless, by morning the girl was with me and we were all arrested by the police. And that's how it turned out. She identified herself as a girl from Nemčičky, a friend of mine. That was a terrible mess. So they forced me. Then they just forced me. I was lucky that I was at the other colleague's wedding, that he put a little brake on it. He said to a colleague. And that colleague was a tough guy, you know. He had a watch, he showed it to me: 'I'm a graduate of a Moscow university. Do you know who's signed here on the watch? Beria, Stalin's advisor.' That's something. Then I learned that he was called 'The Butcher' by a nickname. That he knew how to beat up those people and everything."

  • "My dilligence went in the direction of making myself so visible as an artist that I was called into the offices of what we called the castle, if you understand. Castle, that was the offices. In the castle lived the director and the deputies and all these financial clerks and all these different institutions, I don't know what all, and they called me in there and said, 'If you're going to make banners and canvas paintings for us, propaganda paintings, you don't have to be employed at us anymore, you're going to be a secret artist.' And I said, 'That's good,' so they found a room where they were mixing the colors for one big hall, so to speak, and they repainted that overnight and I had an office there where I could do the signs, whatever they said, I wrote. That may have also contributed to the twist afterwards." - "What kind of signs were they, for example?" - "Long live the Soviet Union and so on. Everything. I even designed them a sort of construction twenty metres across the garden to here, a construction on the square. They made it. Like a rocket. Maybe I had some fun with it. When they saw that I was like that, they said, 'You must have a big studio.' They even tokk me to Ostrava, at the headquarters. I got to know how they live, these people here, these communists, how they have these stops, where they get drunk, where they eat, where... you understand. The life, how they make their life easier, how they have everything, just unbelievable. It's complicated. One of those, I would say managers, he even took me home. 'Dress up, Tonda.‘ So I thought, 'Okay, what's going to happen?' Surprisingly, 'You're coming with me.' So he took me to a huge villa in Hustopeče, which he had built here, mainly out of the iron he had stolen and bought like this, or I'm sorry, maybe bought cheaply, I don't know. Iron was prevalent there. 'You could paint a picture for me on this wall, but I won't give you any money, you can be happy that I'll give you some higher allowances, rewards.' I said, 'But I want at least the cost of paint.' I said to myself that this is a picture that could cost hundreds of thousands, that I would need at least fifty thousand. 'Well, it's not possible.' And immediately the lawsuits happened, my wife was in court, she worked too. That was drama."

  • "That was literally a lovely landscape. I went from theKarlovy Vary region to paradise. Meadows, you've seen two pictures now, meadows, pools, sandy paths, willows, so-called head willows, near Lanžhot a wild forest, it stretched past Pálava up to Pohořelice, almost. And exaggerating just a bit, I literally got engaged to that landscape there. I used to spend the night in those grasslands. I say again with exaggeration that maybe the mosquitoes got used to me, they drank my blood and then they left me alone. I found out that I mustn't wave arms, that it would make me sweat more. And then they would get on me, they sucked. So I made friends with them. I knew everything, every inch of that land. So I was saying goodbye to that land when I was there for those two years afterwards... I have two pictures left, I sold everything off."

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    Břeclav, 13.10.2023

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Don’t resist, it’s futile. Your destiny is set

Antonín Vojtek 19 years old
Antonín Vojtek 19 years old
photo: Witness´s archive

Antonín Vojtek was born on 10 January 1934 in Horní Bojanovice, where he lived through the Second World War. He knew from childhood that he wanted to become a painter. After graduating from secondary school in 1952, he applied to the Academy of Fine Arts, but was not accepted. Instead, he took a teaching course and became a village teacher in western Bohemia, where he was sent to build communism. At that time he also joined the Communist Party. He surrendered his party membership in response to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. As a result, he was expelled from education and worked in mostly blue-collar jobs. In the early 1970s, he became vice-president of the Konfese art group. His success was brought about by an invitation from the Fine Arts Fund to depict the landscape of South Moravia, which was to disappear at the bottom of the future Nové Mlýny dam. Antonín Vojtek became a success, his works were also of interest to art lovers in the West. This was also the reason why he came into the crosshairs of State Security as a person under investigation. From the late 1970s he worked as a freelance painter, and in 1985 he became a member of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists. In 2023 he was living in Břeclav and continued to work as an artist.