Milivoj Uzelac is one of the most prominent representatives of modernism between two wars who significantly influenced the development of Croatian painting through synthesis of avantgarde currents. He attended a gymnasium in Banja Luka where he received his first art lessons from Pero Popović and met his greatest friend, artist Vilko Gecan. He also attended a Gymnasium in Zagreb, where he became a student in Tomislav Krizman's private painting school. Through the works of Miroslav Kraljević, he became acquainted with the painting of Paul Cézanne, which decisively influenced the structural aspects of his approach to painting. For some time he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, from where he was expelled in 1914 due to indiscipline.

Pro-Yugoslav oriented, with a bohemian lifestile, he fled to Prague in 1915 before the mobilisation. There he painted under the mentorship of Jan Preisler and occasionally attended the Academy. He returned to Zagreb in 1919. The combining of Cézanne's palette with construction with expressionist features, such as unusual lighting and emphasizing intense mental states, stimulated a change of generations on the Croatian art scene right after he performed at the spring salon with an informal group of young painters – „The Prague Four". He regularly exhibited at Croatian exhibitions and was one of the Yugoslav representatives at the Venice Biennale in 1940.