Ivan Katar

Self portrait circa 27 CE

**Ivan Katar** was a Fleurian artist and champion of the Proto-Realist movement. He found little success until the end of his life.

## Biography

Ivan was born to Skjolian immigrant parents near the docks in Wilemberg in a tenement house around 1 AE or 1 CE. He was one of twelve children. His father was a fisherman and dock laborer while his mother was a washerwoman. Ivan recalled drawing on his home's floors with charcoal from the fireplace, discarded crayons from dock masters, or with whatever else he could find. He would hoard advertisements, making collages or puppets from them which he and his siblings used to put on plays for their friends. Ivan began working alongside his older siblings on the docks when he was seven, but continued to create art in his spare time. He was jailed for two days in 12 CE for stealing pencils from his employer, a warehouse manager on the waterfront.

In 14 CE, Ivan managed to acquire a job as an errand boy at the Royal Academy of the Arts in the University District of Wilemberg. He would sit in on lessons whenever he could, waiting for orders to retrieve supplies or assist the professors. He would collect the ends of supplies from the trash or from sympathetic students. His work was eventually noticed by a professor in 16 CE who saw potential in the boy's work. He began to allow Ivan to sit in on his classes under the guise of working, taking him under his wing. In 18 CE the professor asked the admissions committee to allow him to sponsor Ivan, which was approved the same year. He began attending the school the next semester on scholarship.

Ivan attended the college for two years before his scholarship was revoked. During this time he showed great promise in painting with watercolors and print making. His collage work was especially innovative for the time. In 20 CE, he left the school to board in a run down home in the Artist's Quarter. While living there, he attended a gallery showing the controversial painting *Breakfast* by Mia of the Lily. There he happened to meet the artist who was attending with her lover Lord Alfred Ganeyev. Ivan introduced himself, much to the pair's amusement. They did not take the young artist too seriously until he showed them one of his collage works while flipping through his sketchbook which he kept always with him. Enamored by it, they began to regularly invite Ivan to their meetings with other Fleurian artists.

Mia offered to become Ivan's patron, going so far as to allow him to live rent free in her home Yellowpaper. The two became incredibly close, best friends even. He experimented with Radium Whale pigments around this time with Mia but found them unsatisfactory. Around this time he began a relationship with Roderick Flore, a model for many artists in the area. They would remain together for the rest of their lives. Ivan's work became very popular in advertising, where he was commissioned for regularly. When Mia became ill in 26 CE, Ivan became her nurse until her death the following year. He had her remains cremated according to her wishes and eventually interred beneath a grand monument to her in Willowreach Gardens in 29 CE, funded by an anonymous donor.

Following Mia's death, Ivan maintained ownership of Yellowpaper until 33 CE, where he sold it to a group of art students. Ivan moved with Rodrick to the Glass District, using his new wealth to fund a more upscale lifestyle. Ivan continued to produce advertisements while also working privately on a series of increasingly realistic paintings. He struggled to have any of these exhibited. In 40 CE, he designed a series of posters for a popular opera on the subject of Halmrich which became incredibly popular prints in Wilemette. He earned more off these than any artist in the Royal Salon that year. He began searching for the location of some of his siblings he had lost touch with during the forties, having some success in locating his favorite elder sister who had moved to Vark.

Throughout the 50s Ivan began funding other up and coming artists though his reputation as a commercial creator harmed his image somewhat. In 56 CE his painting --- was displayed at the Royal Salon as a favor, which caused much uproar. Disappointed by the reception, Ivan would never display one of his paintings publicly again, instead only exhibiting his more conventional prints and some watercolors. In 59 CE he would retire entirely, eventually moving to the countryside in 61 CE with Rodrick to live near the town Maulen in a small cottage.

Ivan would take visits from various artists and friends until Rodrick's death in 67 CE. He became a hermit after, only leaving his home once a month to retrieve goods he ordered in Maulen. He died sometime in 75 CE, but as not discovered until the 7th of Holeaum when he did not show in Maulen for a week to pick up his order. When his cottage was entered, he was found dead in his kitchen. Within the home were stored over a hundred paintings, several hundred watercolors, and innumerable collages and prints along with a massive collection of Fleurian print advertisements dating back to the turn of the eras. The collection was so vast that paintings were found stored behind the artist's furniture and stacked halfway to the ceiling in the corners of the bedrooms.

A trust made up of three artists that Ivan had acted as a patron towards was established after his death to manage his works. They eventually displayed a curated exhibition in 76 CE to much public admiration. A permanent home for the works was created in 78 CE at the --- where a rotation of Ivan's work can be viewed to this day.

He was buried alongside Rodrick in the yard of their cottage. In 113 CE, Queen Guinevere Wilem of Flowers had the two bodies re-interned in a monument tomb in Katar square, a project she had completed that year at the docks, part of a remodel of the slums that had once stood there.

## Appearance

Ivan was thin his entire life and somewhat tall for his time. He had pale skin, dark brown hair, and green eyes. He always wore glasses, which he acquired sometime in his early twenties for his increasingly poor distance vision.

## Legacy

Ivan is considered one of the greatest artists of Fleurian history. His advertisements became part of the cultural identity of Fleur and continue to serve as inspiration into the 200s. His paintings are recognized as ahead of their time in style and technique. In 186 CE he and his work appeared on a series of stamps.

One of Ivan's posters for Lambert University featuring Roderick 26 CE.Watercolor of Roderick Flore at the beach near Wilemberg 28 CEOne of Ivan's final paintings before his hermit period, the Night Market at Maulen from 66 CE