Mařatka studied modelling at the School of Applied Arts in Prague under Professor Celda Klouček 1889−1892) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Professor Josef Václav Myslbek (1896−1898). His first independent work was Ice Cutters on the Vltava (1900), which won him a Hlávek scholarship to study in Paris. In that work Mařatka already demonstrated his ability to depict human labour without pathos or embellishment. During his time in Paris he worked in the studio of Auguste Rodin (1901−1904) and helped the Mánes association organise the Rodin exhibition in Prague. His oeuvre was greatly influenced by his teachers. Myslbek creative abilities derived from calm, as well as refined and clear gestures and reality, whereas Rodin’s works were dynamic, elemental and full of movement. Mařatka’s works were a distinctive artistic synthesis of those two inspirational influences. From 1920 he taught as a professor at the School of Applied Arts in Prague. In the period following World War I he worked on war memorials, the best known of which is Prague to its Victorious Sons, which was unveiled on 29 October 1932.