Štěpán Grygar was born in 1955 in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1979, he graduated from the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU), where he later led the Studio of Art Photography, from 2002 - 2014. In 2008, he was appointed professor.  In 2012 – 2015, Grygar was an external examiner at IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland. From 2014 – 2023, Grygar was the head of studio at the School of Design and Art of Ladislav Sutnar. He has had more than 50 solo exhibitions, including in Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Munich, London and Houston.

Grygar was featured in FotoFest 1990 - Perspectives, Real and Imaginary: Nineteen Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers curated by Wendy Watriss and Frederic C. Baldwin, and in 2009 in New Visualism under the curator Wendy Watriss.  Grygar is represented in several prime collections, including Centre G. Pompidou, Paris, Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris, Museum Ludwig, Köln, The University of Texas at Austin, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. This year he is featured in an exhibition at the Bibliotèque Nationale de France in Paris. 

Grygar's photographs form an important part of the Czech art scene. His work from the mid-1970s was classified as “Czech photographic visualism”, and during the 1980s he developed a synthesis of conceptual approach and reflection or analysis of the photographic medium. Grygar's work can be placed into the post-conceptual tendencies of Czech photography, stimulated by minimalism. In recent years, his work has been characterized by a strong inclination towards the use of color as an important expressive element, working frequently with bright surfaces and strong color becoming an important expressive element.