Due to his father's occupation, the Matić family moved frequently, spending time in Pirot, Čačak, Niš and Šabac.

At the age of 16, Matić published his first poetry in the Serbian Social Democratic Party aligned Radničke novine (The Workers' Journal) under the nom de plume Uroš Jovanović.

Moving from Messina to Marseille, followed by Grenoble, Matić eventually continued his education in Nice, where he graduated from high school in July 1917.

[2] There, he met and befriended Rastko Petrović, with whom he would attend meetings hosted by French avant-garde writers of the era.

[2] In it, Matić published his essay Ujević detailing the group's view of Tin Ujević, as well as a segment on the creation of madness in the sixth issue and a large portion of the seventh issue titled Pakao (Hell) detailing the inner lives of the mentally ill, the blind, prisoners, sex workers and beggars.

In May, the first surrealist almanac the group authored was published under the name Nemoguće (The Impossible), with an introduction written by Ristić and Matić.

Kostić claimed that Radojica Živanović Noe beat Drainac only later that night in a one-on-one fight near Hotel Moskva.

In late 1932, Matić published the book Položaj nadrealizma u društvenom procesu (The Position of Surrealism in the Social Process) in collaboration with Oskar Davičo and Đorđe Kostić.

[2] The book was openly critical of the limits of surrealism and caused a falling out between Ristić and Matić which would continue for several years.

In April 1935, Matić resided in Kragujevac with a group of writers including Aleksandar Vučo, Velibor Gligorić and Radovan Zogović.

He translated Ivan Pavlov's book on conditional reflexes and co-signed a protest letter with Marko Ristić and Milan Dedinac against Crnjanski's Antologija Ideja (Anthology of Ideje), which they published in NIN.

[17] In 1936, Matić and Vučo published an excerpt from the novel they were working on, at that time titled Beograd (Belgrade), in the first double issue of Naša stvarnost (Our Reality).

[18] In the 9-10 double issue of Naša stvarnost in 1937, dedicated to the defense of culture in Spain, Milan Dedinac published the poem Jedan čovek na prozoru (A Man on the Window), with an introduction by Matić and Koča.

In 1938, Matić was one of the leading members of the Association of Scientists, Writers and Artists headed by Branislav Nušić and law professor Đorđe Tasić.

In 1940, Geca Kon published Matić and Vučo's finished novel, now titled Gluho doba (The Deaf Times).

Its visual elements were provided by Matić's friend and later architect and owner of Belgrade's Hotel Majestic, Oliver Minić.

That same year, Matić and Eli Finci translated Roger Martin du Gard's first novel in his multi-volume The Thibaults, Le cahier gris (The Grey Notebook).

[21][16] During the war, Matić tried to make contact with the Yugoslav Partisans in 1942, but was intercepted by Chetnik forces en route to the Lipovica forest.

There, he watched an early staging of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, which he brought back to Yugoslavia to be translated into Serbo-Croatian.

[27] In 1956, Matić became co-editor of Književnost alongside Eli Finci, also contributing to Oskar Davičo's newly created modernist periodical Delo (Labor).

[29] That year, he published his collection of essays titled Anina balska haljina (Ana's Ball Gown) for which he received an award from the Association of Writers of Serbia in 1957.

The following year, Matić traveled to Paris where he stayed as a guest of André Malraux, at the time Minister of Cultural Affairs.

[31] Matić traveled to Paris in 1975, where he fell ill. His sight was weak during his final years, and he continued to maintain correspondence primarily with Draško Ređep who was residing in Novi Sad.

That same year, BIGZ published a selection of Matić's poems titled Tajni plamen (The Secret Flame), with a foreword by Ređep.