The academy-trained painter Miroslav Kraljević enrolled at the Faculty of Law in Vienna in 1904, while also attending the private drawing courses of George Fischhof. He was in Munich since 1906, where he first attended Moritz Heymann's graphic school, and then enters the Academy of Fine Arts under Hugo von Habermann, which he graduates in 1910. There, he came in contact with Nadežda Petrović, Nasta Rojc, Oskar Herman, Vladimir Becić and Josip Račić, with whome he created the so-called "Die Kroatische Schule", later called the "Munich Circle". In 1910, he returned to Požega to his parents after finishing his studies. In September 1911, Kraljević left for Paris and enrolled at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere. He returned to his homeland and Zagreb in poor health in the fall of 1912 and prepared his first and only standalone exhibition. Kraljević died of tuberculosis in 1913.

He is one of our greatest Croatian portrait painters, with his portraits showing a clear influence of Goya. This artist sought synthesis in simple strokes and colours. Along with Vlaho Bukovac, he is the first contemporary Croatian portrait painter, the first Croatian "reader of faces" and the first Croatian "painter of the soul". Kraljević enriched the national art by bringing vitality to it and freeing it from remnants of the past.