Jiří Máška was born on November 2, 1955 a small south-Bohemian village called Ražice. He has been an artist since his early childhood. His grandfather recognized the talent Jiří was endowed with and asked a friend of his very famous painter Říhánek to teach young Jiří. Jiří attended Říhánek´s lessons until he was 10 and then he started lessons with professor Rejžek who tutored him until the age of 16.

After that Jiří enrolled in a graphic school of professor Janoch in Prague. Four years later Máška returned to South Bohemia where he worked as a head of the promotion department in the Park of Culture and Relaxation in České Budějovice. He and several other friends, painters and sculptors formed a group and they displayed art which was unacceptable for the communist regime and thus their exhibition hall was closed down in the year 1983. And Jiří Máška and other members of the group were prevented from developing their art.

Jiří Máška needed to talk freely and paint without restrictions, and so he left the country and emigrated to the USA where he continued his studies attending lessons of professor Hanson at Everett College in Washington. At that time, Jiří Máška displayed his pictures in Jackson Gallery in Seattle and reactions of the public and professionals was unambiguous. He was immediately offered to organize an exhibition in Los Angeles and New York.

After his exhibition in New York a full page of information on Jiří Máška was published in a prestigious New York art magazine called Manhattan Arts. Renée Phillips / the magazine publisher asked art reviewer Elizabeth A. Witford to review the exhibition.

And she wrote: " Pictures of Jiří Máška are wild utterance of his creative spirit he can paint both pictures that remind of wood carving and pictures that are unbelievably delicate more delicate than Japanese parchments. Jiří Máška found new speech, universal and concrete at the same time. It is speech from soul to soul and it includes noises and thoughts that catch other thoughts and attract and pervade each other. The fantastic rhythm of Jiří Máška´s pictures, their composition and quality remind of works by famous abstract expressionist Archile Gorky. A new star is rising for all those who love art.

Jiří Máška displayed his works in Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Seattle and Los Angeles. His original works are admired by people in many countries all over the world.

At the time of communism Jiří Máška said about himself:" It is a tragedy. I was born as an artist and I can see myself as two separate persons. I can only observe the wild, crazy person from a distance who dictates my mood and topics of my pictures. My technique is difficult to classify according to ordinary, usual techniques, I start a picture with detergent and latex, the next layer are temperas and watercolors and in the end I paint with oil and varnish. I personally love impressionists, but I also admire many surrealists and abstract painters."

Jiří Máška returned to the Czech Republic in the year 1991, shortly after the revolution. This country has always remained his true home. From his studio he sends joy in his pictures to all the people who like his works. And now it is you who has the opportunity to discover the : " NEW GENERATION OF ART" even though it is only on your computer screen.