Professor Pavel Štěpánek is a prominent Czech art historian, expert on the history of art and architecture of the Hispanic world, publicist and translator. In 1964–1973, he studied art history at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. At the same time, he was also the editor of the Spanish section of the Czech News Agency. Subsequently, he worked as an assistant at the National Gallery and the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region until 1989. He was an editor of the Ateliér magazine. From 1991 he was Ambassador and Chargé d’affaires of Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic in Venezuela. He lectures at Palacký University in Olomouc and at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. He has been a professor since 2006. He has written dozens of books on Hispanic art and artists, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Dominguez, and numerous publications on cultural relations between the Czech Republic and Mexico, Peru, Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela. He is a Correspondent of the Royal Spanish Academy in Madrid, the National Academy of Fine Arts in Lisbon, and an honorary member of the Hispanic Society of America in New York. He has received many honours, the most prestigious of which include the Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic, awarded by the King of Spain, and the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, which he received from the President of Mexico.