Born in 1935 in Belgrade, Serbia. He graduated in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Belgrade and between 1983 and 2000 taught Painting and Drawing at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris.

He lived and worked in Paris since 1966 and was a member of the French Academy of Fine Arts and the Serbian Academy for Sciences and Arts since 1984.

He was honoured with the highest French decoration in the field of culture and art, Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Having held numerous exhibitions around the world, Velickovic demonstrated a sharp relationship between the human condition and the world's reality. As he himself mentioned, "I have always painted what humans are capable of doing to humans".

The expressiveness in his work is achieved through the representation of dramatic situations, of bodies in tension, realized with a quick and spontaneous drawing where colour – or its absence – assumes great importance.

He won the painting first prize at the Paris Biennale in 1965 and in 1972 he represented Yugoslavia at the Venice Biennale.

His work is represented at the Center George Pompidou in France, and at the Museum of Modern Art in the USA, among other important collections.

He passed away on August 29, 2019, in Croatia.