Beginning in 1958, he studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, in the atelier of Karel Svolinský. He graduated in 1964, with the cycles of illustrations to the poetry of Vladimír Holan (Senator, (in English: Dream)) and Christian Morgenstern (The Gallows Songs).
Kulhánek created the design for the current Czechoslovakian banknotes and postage stamps. The graphics were identified as "ideologically dangerous" and condemned to destruction. Kulhánek spent a month in prison and was interrogated regularly for next two years.
He was prohibited from publishing.
In the 1980s, he created lithographs inspired by the development of the human body. Following the Velvet Revolution, he visited the United States of America and attended the Lithographic Workshop in Los Los Angeles
He also often travelled to Belgium, to study the works of old masters. Kulhánek died suddenly in Prague on 28 January 2013 at the age of 72.
One of his last graphic works was inspired by the Biblical story of Job.
In 1971 he was arrested by the StB (the Czechoslovak Secret Police) and imprisoned for "defamation of the allied socialist states". In a graphic cycle created from 1968 to 1971, he included "a distorted portrait of Joseph Stalin, perforated five-pointed red stars or joyful faces of socialist workers turned into a hideous grin".
He was a member of the Association of Czechoslovakian Graphic Artists Hollar.