Jan Pištěk is a Czech painter born into an artistic family with cultural roots reaching back to the second half of the 19th century.

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From 1980 to 1986, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In 1990, he became an assistant professor in the painting studio of Professor Bedřich Dlouhý.

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He is part of a generation of artists who made a significant impact on the Czech art scene in the mid-1980s and became key figures in shaping its development throughout the following decade.

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In the 1990s, his collaboration with the newly established Behémot Gallery proved important, as he became one of its regular exhibiting artists from 1991 onwards.

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Two trips to the United States in the years that followed had a profound influence on his artistic thinking and creative direction.

In 1993, he was selected by a professional jury of American art critics and theorists to participate in the international painting and sculpture symposium Triangle Artist's Workshop in New York.

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In 1994, he was invited by a private collector and gallerist to visit the American Midwest and was subsequently awarded a residency scholarship in downtown New York. Following this experience, he ended his teaching career in 1995 to fully focus on his independent artistic practice and related activities. This period was marked by repeated trips to France, Italy, and the Netherlands, including study stays in Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam.

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By 2024, he had held nearly forty solo exhibitions and participated in numerous major group shows and exhibitions of contemporary Czech art, both in the Czech Republic and internationally.

His work is represented in state and municipal art collections, including the National Gallery in Prague, as well as in private collections of modern art at home and abroad.

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Alongside his artistic practice, Pištěk also worked intensively as a costume designer for film and theatre before and after the turn of the millennium. He collaborated with his father, Theodor Pištěk, on major American film productions shot in the Czech Republic, as well as on grand-scale Czech musicals.

 

He also worked independently on remarkable projects with the Forman Brothers’ Theatre—both aboard their ship Tajemství (The Secret) and at the National Theatre.