Vladimir Maleković was born in 1936 in Brdovec. He attended secondary school in Varaždin and Zagreb. In 1962 he took a BA (art history) in the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb University. From 1953 to 1961 he had been engaged in writing, publishing poetry, prose and reviews in literary weeklies and magazines (Polet, Literatura, Književne novnine, Telegram, Republika and others). From 1961 to 1963 he was script writer and assistant director in RTV Zagreb, and from 1964 was in the editorial office of Vjesnik, published reviews on art, literature, theatre, music, architecture, design and conservation of monuments.
Even before he moved to the Museum of Arts and Crafts in 1983 he had conceived or independently produced numerous monograph exhibitions, retrospectives of culture-related exhibitions.
He is author of the exhibitions: Croatian Fine Art (1945-1955), 1974; Group of Three, 1976; Expressionism and Croatian Painting, 1980; Culture of the Paulists in Croatia, 1989; Baroque in Croatia, 1993; Biedermeier in Croatia, 1997 and many others.
He wrote numerous monographs, some of the best known being Croatian Primal Art, 1973; Ivan Rabuzin, 1976; Edo Murtić, 1978; Kosta Angeli Radovani, 1981; Krsto Hegedušić, 1985; Dubravka Babić, 1987.
He was editor of publishing series and libraries, editor, reviewer or member of the editorial board of numbers domestic and foreign publishing firms.
He initiated and led the revival of the Museum of Arts and Crafts, was author of the preliminary concept of the new permanent display of 1993. He wrote several screenplays for short films and TV programmes. In 1998 Matica Hrvatska published his book of poems Stone Gardens, and Ex Libris in 2001 published a book of columns Bogomraki. He won numerous prizes and awards: City of Zagreb Prize, 1989 and 1993; the decoration Order of the Croatian Daystar with Figure of Marko Marulić and the INA Prize for the promotion of Croatian culture abroad, 1997.
He died while still director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in 2003.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on 9. listopada 2002.