Kseniya Boguslavskaya
Russian painter
Kseniya (or Ksenia or Xenia) Boguslavskaya (also Xana Puni; , born 5 February [O.S. 24 January] 1892 in Odessa, died 3. Mai 1972 in Herblay-sur-Seine) was a Russian avant-garde artist (Futurist, Suprematist), illustrator and scenic designer. She was the wife of the painter Ivan Puni, whom he supported very much.
Biography.
Xana was born in Odessa as Xenia Bogoslovskaya.
Her father Leonid Ivanovich Bogoslovsky (01.01.1854 — 22.07.1902) was Lieutenant colonel of the Russian Army and served in 1898-1902 in Guangdong, China, where he died of dysentery. Her mother, Vera Fedorovna Bogoslovskaya (born Alabugina, daughter of lieutenant; 26.04.1858 - 16.08.1921), who followed him, went after her husband's death with Xana and her elder brother to Saint Petersburg and lived from the military pension. Xana studied in 1903-1908 at the Therese von Oldenburg Female School. For the drawing lessons she took hours at the Imperial Academy of Arts. With Ivan Puni, her future partner, she got acquainted in 1908. In
1909-1910 she participated in some political activities. Fearing persecution, she married a certain Kolosov and left Russia with him, first to Galicia (Lviv, Carpathians), then to Vienna and from there to Naples. In Naples she entered the Academy of Fine Arts. In Naples she met Ivan Puni and moved to him to Paris (March 1912). Soon Ivan left for Russia, and Xana attended Parisian public schools (l'Académie russe and Académie de la Grande Chaumière) until May 1913. Then she returned to Saint Petersburg under the surname Boguslavskaya.
In St.-Petersburg she joined Puni (they married officially only in February 1920) and their flat became for 6 months a meeting point for the Russian Futurists. Velimir Khlebnikov was deeply impressed by herself and her stories from Galicia.
Xana supported Ivan in all his activities, e. g. preparation of the collection "Roaring Parnassus" (1913), organization of exhibitions "Tramway V" (March 1915) und "0,10" (December 1915) and the decoration of Petrograd for the revolutionary holydays (May und November 1918). In 1919 they went (January–April) to Witebsk in order to teach at the Art School founded by Marc Chagall.
Berlin Period.
In 1920 (February) she and Puni escaped from the Soviet Union across the ice of the Gulf of Finland. They lived in Berlin from 1920 to 1923, she worked as a scene designer for the Russian-German cabaret called "Der Blaue Vogel" and for the "Russian Romantic Theatre". In Berlin, they established ties with the "International Futurists", including poet and Kārlis Zāle.
Paris Period.
At the end of 1923 they moved to Paris. Boguslavskaya again took care of the finances as a costume designer and fabric designer until Puni gradually achieved fame as a painter. She was also active as art dealer, but above all she was committed to Puni's work. After his death (December 28, 1956), she organized around 20 retrospective exhibitions of Puni and prepared material for his catalog of works, which was published in 1972 (1st volume) and 1992 (2nd volume). In 1959/1960 and in 1966 she donated a total of 62 works by Puni (paintings and graphic works) to the French state.
Xenia Boguslavskaya died on May 3, 1972 in Herblay-sur-Seine near Paris.
Personal web seite of Xenia Boguslavskaya und Ivan Puni.
IVAN PUNI, research project
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Ivan Puni
Russian artist
Ivan Albertovich Puni (; also known as Jean Pougny; 3 April [O.S. 22 March] 1890 – 28 December 1956) was a Russian avant-garde (Suprematist, Cubo-Futurist) and French artist, who intensively changed his style until it went into lyric Primitivism in the direction of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard.
Biography.
Early life.
Ivan Puni was born in Kuokkala (then Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, now Repino, a part of St. Petersburg in Russia). It was long believed that Ivan Puni was born in 1892 or 1894 until his birth certificate was found in 2019 in a St. Petersburg archive, showing his birth date as 22 March 1890 (old style).
He was the grandson of an eminent Italian composer of ballet music, Cesare Pugni. His father, a cellist, proposed him a military career, but Ivan instead decided to become a painter.
Career.
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 Xenia Boguslavskaya, and met, and exhibited with, members of the St Petersburg avant-garde, including Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. He made a second trip to Paris in 1914, returning to St. Petersburg with the outbreak of WWI. At this point, he began painting in a Cubist style reminiscent of Juan Gris. In 1915, Puni organized the exhibitions "Tramway V" and "0.10," both held in St Petersburg, in which Malevich, Tatlin, Aleksandra Ekster, Liubov Popova, Ivan Kliun, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Boguslavskaya and others participated, and to which Puni contributed constructions, readymades, and paintings. 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.
Years of exile.
Puni and his wife, Xenia Boguslavskaya, emigrated from Russia in 1920 (end of January), first to Finland, then to Berlin, where his solo exhibition was held at the Galerie der Sturm (February 1920). While in Berlin, Puni also designed costumes and sets for theatrical productions, and published a theoretical book "Modern Painting".
Puni and Boguslavskaya relocated to Paris in 1923, where he carried on with development of his style, which experienced several metamorphoses until it stabilized at approximately 1943 to a variant of Post-Impressionism or lyric Primitivism in the direction of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. In France he became "Jean Pougny" and in 1947 obtained French citizenship. He died in Paris in 1956.
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />