His father was a school teacher in the village of Biskoupky in Southern Moravia who often traveled to see art exhibitions and was also a musician who studied under the composer Leoš Janáček.

In 1918, he was drafted into the Austrian army, but quickly sent home when he became ill. After the first World War, Nezval moved to Prague and began studying philosophy at the Charles University, but he did not receive his degree because he failed to finish his thesis.

In 1922, the Devetsil group included, but was not limited to, Vítězslav Nezval, Jindřich Štyrský, Jaroslav Seifert, Karel Teige, and Toyen (Marie Cerminová).

Though the Czechoslovakian state was newly formed after World War I, the younger generation felt there was still room for improvement and that a radical solution was necessary to gain true liberation.

Though their philosopher-president, Thomas Masaryk, gave them the first real socially-minded democracy, Nezval and others in his group did not accept this regime as representative of their beliefs and goals.

Along with Karel Teige, Jindřich Štyrský, and Toyen, Nezval frequently traveled to Paris where he rubbed shoulders with the French surrealists.

Nezval's poem Sbohem a šáteček (Waving farewell; 1934) was set to music by the Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová in 1937, and was premiered in its orchestral version in 1940 by Rafael Kubelik.