Ivan Puni
1895-1956

Ivan Puni
1895-1956

Ivan Puni was born in Kuokkala, Finland, to a family of Italian origins, the grandson of an eminent Italian composer, 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.

Puni continued his formal training in Paris from 1910–11 at the Académie Julien and other schools, where he painted in a Fauvist style. Upon his return to Russia in 1912, he married fellow artist Ksenia Boguslavskaya. 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 joined Supremus, the group founded by Malevich for the promulgation of Suprematism, first exhibited at the 0,10 Exhibition. He and Malevich 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 also contributed, whilst in 1919, he taught at the Vitebsk Art School under Marc Chagall.

Puni and his wife, Kseniya Boguslavskaya, emigrated from Russia in 1919, relocating to Paris in 1924, where his style changed once again to Impressionism. In 1946, Puni – or Pougny in its French version – became a French citizen.