Juliana Jirousová

Juliana Jirousová (17 September 1943 – 25 August 2023) was a Czech artist and painter, known for her paintings of Roman Catholic saints.

Her former husband, poet Ivan Martin Jirous, was also a dissident and major figure in the underground movement during the Normalization period.

Jirousová was born Juliana Stritzková in Stará Říše on 17 September 1937 to a strongly religious Catholic family.

She graduated from secondary school in Telč in the early 1960s, but was not allowed to continue higher education due to political pressure from the communist authorities.

One of her early jobs involved painting with psychiatric patients at a hospital in Havlíčkův Brod as a form of art therapy.