Jindřich Štýrský was born on August 11, 1899, in Čermná at Kyšperk (what is now Letohrad). He studied at the Grammar School at Hradec Králové and later on at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Prague.
Jindřich Štýrský was a painter, novelist, poet, editor, photographer and theoretician, a representative of the interwar avant-garde, an important representative of surrealism; from 1923 he was a member of Devětsil. His extensive creative activity also included graphic arts for the stage and book illustration.
Štýský’s early pieces were influenced partially by cubism and primitivism, but his principle style was surrealism. In 1926, together with Toyen, he founded a Czech branch of surrealism - artificialism, and in 1934 he was a co-founder of the Surrealistic Group. He was one of the first European artists to utilize colour collage.