Born in New York, Vytlacil lived in Chicago as a youth, where he took classes at the Art Institute, before returning to New York at 20 to study at the Art Students League. He took a job teaching at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1916 to 1921, when he left for Europe. While a student at the Academy of Art in Munich, he was introduced to Hans Hofmann, who had a profound influence on Vytlacil's style. In 1935 he returned to New York where he became one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists Group in 1936. Vytlacil exhibited across the United States, and his work entered major collections including the Whitney Museum of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also taught widely, across the nation and near his summer home in Chilmark, Massachusetts, at the Martha's Vineyard Art Association.
