Franc Berneker was an accomplished portraitist and devoted himself to portraiture in his student years. His oeuvre is marked by numerous portraits of clients, patrons, children and important figures. Among them is the 1905 portrait of a poet Oton Župančič, who Berneker met in Vienna.

According to Špelca Čopič, Berneker’s portrait of Oton Župančič is without precedent in modern sculptural portraits in Slovenia. The sculptor cut off the poet’s head below the neck, thus eliminating the problem of the pedestal. The work is designed in a realist manner; the poet is depicted with his signature glasses and gives the impression of a serious intellectual. Two years later, Berneker made another portrait of the poet, now without glasses, less recognisable, with a lower cut and smoother and more subdued modelling.