Ivan Puni

Ivan Puni was born in Kuokkala (then Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, now Repino in Russia) to a family of Italian origins.[5] He was the grandson of an eminent Italian composer of ballet music, Cesare Pugni. His father, a cellist, insisted that he follow a military career, but Ivan instead decided to take private drawing lessons with Ilya Repin. By 1909, he had his own studio.[1]

Puni continued his formal training in Paris in 1910–11 at the Académie Julien and other schools, where he painted in a derivative fauviste style. Upon his return to Russia in 1912, he married fellow artist Kseniya Boguslavskaya, and met, and exhibited with, members of the St Petersburg avant-garde, including Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin.[1] He made a second trip to Paris in 1914, returning to St. Petersburg in 1915. At this point, he began painting in a Cubist style reminiscent of Juan Gris. In 1915, Puni, (Aleksandra Ekster, Liubov Popova, Ivan Kliun, Ksenia Boguslavskaya, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Nina Genke and others) formed Supremus, a group of artists dedicated to the promulgation of Suprematism, the abstract art movement founded by Malevich, and first exhibited at the 0,10 Exhibition. Malevich and Puni co-authored the Suprematist Manifesto, published in 1916, which proclaimed a new, abstract art for a new historical era.

Puni also organized the exhibitions Tramway 5 and 0.10, both held in St Petersburg in 1915, in which Malevich, Tatlin, Popova and others participated, and to which Puni contributed constructions, readymades, and paintings.[1] In 1915-1916 Puni, together with other Suprematist artists, worked at Verbovka Village Folk Centre. In 1919, he taught at the Vitebsk Art School under Marc Chagall.[1]

Puni and his wife, Kseniya Boguslavskaya, emigrated from Russia in 1919, first to Finland, then in 1920 to Berlin,[1] where the first exhibition consisting entirely of his work was held at the Galerie der Sturm. While in Berlin, Puni also designed costumes and sets for theatrical productions, and published a book criticising Suprematism.[1]

Puni and Boguslavskaya relocated to Paris in 1924,[1] where his style changed once again to a variant of Impressionism. In France, he signed his work as "Jean Pougny", in an effort to distance his new art practice from his previous one in Russia. In 1946, Puni/Pougny became a French citizen. He died in Paris in 1956.