Zlatko Keser (Zagreb, 1942)  graduated in 1967 from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb, in the class of Oton Postružnik, and then was an associate of the Master Workshop of Krsto Hegedušić (1971–75), where he mastered the techniques of wall painting. He has been teaching at ALU since 1984 and was elected professor emeritus in 2014.

Experimenting with many painting and non-painting techniques, he developed a spontaneous, playful, but at the same time thoughtful way of creating, based on the experiences of expressionism, informal, lyrical abstraction, the Cobra group and raw art, as well as coloristic, calligraphic and gestural painting. Rejecting constraining realism and narrative in favor of fantasy widths, he created works of archetypal strength with basic painting elements, in dynamic compositions of enormous dimensions, equally as in miniatures, in monochromes or strong coloristic realizations, searching for ways of reconciling almost insoluble dichotomies and radical contrasts: rational and irrational, playful figuration and reductive language of abstraction, relief spread of intense, often primary color and emphasized graphics. He exhibited at numerous solo and group exhibitions, winning prizes at the Zagreb Salon in 1980 and 1981, the Yugoslav Drawing Triennial (Sombor) in 1990, the Croatian Drawing Triennial in 1985, 1989, 1999 and 2008, the Dubrovnik Salon in 1989, the Croatian watercolor triennial 2004, Painting Biennale 2017.

He won the Josip Račić Award in 1992; the HDLU annual Awards in 1998; the HDLU Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021; and the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, the most important award for artistic achievement awarded by the state of Croatia. He has been a regular member of HAZU since 2004. His graphic monograph was published in 2018.