Ivan Puni Albertovich (1892-1956)

I. Puni contemporaries remembered as a serial cubist, strong painter, who claimed in the debate of the 1920s. uselessness of the artist for the production, declares beautiful skyscrapers and machines themselves, for the first time, perhaps, making a distinction between technical and artistic aesthetics.

Pugni was born in the family of a famous cellist A. Cesare Pugni. The initial art education at home, he took lessons from I. Repin .
in 1900-08 years. Nicholas studied at the Imperial Military Academy.
in 1909 opened his own studio in St. Petersburg.
in 1910-12 years. lived in Paris, studied at the Academy Julian R. and other art studios. Vernuvshisv Petersburg, met with D. Burliuk , Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vladimir Khlebnikov, K. Malevich , participated in the exhibition "Union of Youth."

In 1913 he again went to Paris, where he became interested in cubism, exhibited his works in the Salon des Independants.
in 1915 with his wife, K. Puni-Boguslawska, organized in Petrograd of "Streetcar" B "", "0.10" , attended by the most prominent avant-garde artists - Futurists, objectivists. Spouses Puni proclaimed in leaflets distributed at "0.10", "freedom of the subject of sense." Puni performed sketch cover futuristic anthology "The Futurists. Roaring Parnassus" (1914).

In January 1916, together with Malevich Puni held a conference on contemporary art in the hall Tenishev School in St. Petersburg. By this time include the establishment of non-objective works that are close to the work of Malevich and genre paintings and portraits ("Race," "Hair," "The Card Players," "Self-Portrait"). Later, in Berlin in 1923, reaching a low score Puni Russian abstract art (and his own), defining it as a "non-objective design", "three thousand combinations of one circle and a couple of squares."

After the revolutionary events Puni actively involved in the organizational and creative work: he was one of the founders of the Union "Freedom of Art" (1917), in 1918 he became a professor of Petrograd GSHM, participated in a festive decoration of Petrograd to the May Day celebrations and the anniversary of the October Revolution, he worked at the State Porcelain Plant, completed the project for printing of the CPC.

In January 1919 , Moscow 3. Chagall was invited to teach at the Puni spouses Vitebsk folk art school, but in the autumn of Pugni returned to Petrograd and at the end of the year went to Finland, and from the autumn of 1920 - in Berlin.
Prior to 1923 Pugni wrote figurative paintings and participated in exhibitions. In 1923, Berlin was published in his book "Modern Painting", which discussed topical issues of art 1910-20-ies.

In 1923, Pugni was living in France, talked with artists of modern trends - F. Leger, Marc A., A. Ozanfanom, G. Severini. Experienced a passion constructivism, Dadaism, Cubism.
At the end of the 1920s and 1930s. wrote aesthetically close to impressionism landscapes, still lifes, interiors. In 1946, Pugni took French citizenship, after a while became a Knight of the Legion of Honor.
At the end of 1940 - the mid-1950s. wrote "mosaic" composed pure color pictorial compositions: "Harlequin" (1948 - 56), "The orange chair" (1948), "Suburbs" (1953), etc. In the same period, has successfully held his solo exhibitions in galleries in Paris in New York, London, Vienna, Tokyo, Rome. He died in his Paris studio.

Creativity Puni, for a bygone time of the field of view of critics and art historians, re-opened in 1970. due to the increased interest in the art of the avant-garde. Today, the artist is rightfully occupy the most prestigious places in the exhibitions and collections of reputable museums in Russia, Europe and America.