About Ivan Večenaj
Painter Ivan Vecenaj – Tislarov was born on May 18th, 1920 in a rural family in a village called Gola in the Podravina region of Croatia. He ended schooling after 4 years of primary school. He was among the few best students and already then showed great talent for drawing and painting. He is a member of the so-called Hlebinian School of naive painters with whom he has group and individual exhibitions, in total a few hundred exhibitions world-wide. He is the winner of many acknowledgements and awards. His painting “Four Riders of Apocalipso” was printed in THE BIBLE IN 20th CENTURY ART, London (also including the greatest world known artist like Picasso, Chagal, Dali, Bibife or Kokoschka). Beside his painting, he writes and collects language treasures and proverbs. From that collection a dictionary with 12.000 old words from the village of Gola was made, subtitled ‘Middle Aged Podravian Dialect’. Next to this, he is responsable for a book with 4.000 proverbs. He wrote on the history of his area, was the author of 2 novels and a book of poetry, including 60 poems. Some of these poems were musically performed and recorded on CD. He is also a collector of ethnographic treasure, so he adapted his native house into an ethnographical museum. He lives and works in Gola.