Kraljević studied painting in Vienna and Munich at the prestigious Academy of Arts along with Oskar Herman, Vladimir Becić and Josip Račić.

[6] In the autumn of 1906 Kraljević moved to Munich, where he spent two terms at the private school of Moritz Heymann, known for training excellent printermakers.

During this time, he painted Self-portrait with Dog (Croatian: Autoportret sa psom), and many of his other well-known portraits, landscapes and other works with rustic themes.

Here Kraljević's creative talent came to the fore, and despite the advancing effects of tuberculosis, he produced some of his best work, a range of motifs of Parisian life in drawings and oils.

Miroslav Kraljević, along with fellow Croatian artists Joseph Račić, Vladimir Becić and Oscar Herman established modern art in Croatia, setting a new direction from the previously dominant academic traditions.

Their art was autonomous artistic expression, without literary, historical or moralistic framework, which puts them in direct contact with French impressionism, particularly with Manet and Cézanne as role models.

[8] Kraljević's graphic work displays strong tonal qualities and an excellent sense of light and dark relationships, perfectly suiting a sensitive temperament which could express extreme joy, but soon transform into deepest melancholy.

[9] The most mature pictures of Kraljević's creative period were produced while he was in Požega: Krave na paši (Cows at Pasture), Bik (Bull), and U staji (In the Stables).

Broad strokes and sharp contrasts of color show the artist in his natural element, the countryside, rather than the bourgeois parlor atmosphere.

It is named after Miroslav Kraljević "whose innovations exercised a decisive influence on Croatian visual art in the beginning of the 20th century".