Jan Pištěk

Jan Pištěk (1961) is a distinctive outlier on the contemporary Czech art scene. In 1980–1986, he studied figure and landscape painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he later worked as an assistant in Bedřich Dlouhý’s painting studio. Thanks to his regular contact with banned members of the older generation of artists, including visits to their studios, while still a student Pištěk was able to personally encounter the unofficial art scene, from which he ended up drawing inspiration. Although he has spent his entire life dedicated to painting, he does not eschew other fields such as object art or costume design. In this latter field, he has enjoyed success since the late 1990s. Among other things, the Forman brothers invited him to work on their production of Crimson Sails on the Mystery Boat, and his designs have also been used by the National Theatre. In his art, Pištěk most commonly creates thematic series and cycles, on which he usually works over the course of several years before he considers them finished. He likes to combine the figural and the abstract, the illusionistic and the tangible. His sense for detail and his fascination with natural processes have led him to produce unexpected, sometimes even meditative images. Jan Pištěk has held nearly forty solo exhibitions and has participated in numerous group showings of contemporary art in the Czech Republic and abroad. Exhibitions include Link4Pictures at Mánes (2007), Below the Surface at the National Gallery Prague (2013), Two Worlds (with Theodor Pištěk) at Villa Pellé (2022), and Hidden Stories at Queen Anne’s Summer Palace at Prague Castle (2025), plus his participation in international shows of contemporary art in Barcelona (2018, 2019) and Beijing. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the National Gallery Prague, Prague City Gallery, Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou, Kunsthalle Praha, COLLETT Prague | Munich, and the Karel Babíček Collection, among others.