Lot 234A email save

PUNI, Ivan Albertovich [Jean Pougny] (1894-1956).

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Suprematist artist's book with collages, cutouts and paintings, circa 1920. (140 x 105 mm). Original patterned paper wrappers with a collage on the front and a gouache affixed to the inside of the back wrapper. Provenance: Puni archive with artist's personal stamp on the back wrapper. Puni was one of the most radical of Russian avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century. After studying abroad in Paris, he joined Kazimir Malevich's Suprematist group of artists that included Aleksandra Exter, Ivan Kliun, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, and his future wife Ksenia Boguslavskaya. He also organised two key exhibitions of the Russian avant-garde in Petrograd, "Tramway W" in 1915 and the last Futurist exhibition "0.10" in 1916. In 1919 he taught at the Vitebsk Art School with Marc Chagall. In 1920 he émigrated with his wife, stopping first in Germany and then settling in France where he changed his name to Jean Pougny. This unpublished book is a work of art unto itself. In addition to the lettered collage on the front cover, there are nonsense words cut out of pages, plucked from an unidentified Russian pamphlet, with the pages behind painted to give the letters various colors. A gouache collage is attached to a later leaf and a stunning small Suprematist goauche is afixed to the recto of the back wrapper.

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