BIOGRAPHY
MYTHS & FACTS
PAINTINGS 1912-1913
PAINTINGS 1914-1915
PAINTINGS 1916-1920
PAINTINGS 1921-1923
PAINTINGS 1924-1926
PAINTINGS 1926-1929
PAINTINGS 1928-1935
PAINTINGS 1933-1942
PAINTINGS 1942-1956
HARLEQUINS
FIGURATIVE DRAWINGS
ABSTRACT DRAWINGS
WATERCOLOR, GOUACHE
RELIEFS
LINOCUTS
LITHOGRAPHS
TEXTS by IVAN PUNI
EXHIBITIONS
CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ
FORGERIES
ROLE OF XANA
CONTACTS
| WATERCOLOR, GOUACHE | РУ DE EN |
In St. Petersburg 1914-1919 Puni often coloured his drawings.
Watercolours and gouache sketches of Petrograd decorations for the May and November holidays of 1918 are kept at the State Russian Museum.
From the Berlin period (1921-1923) a number of still lifes in gouache (Nos. 71 and 79-88 of the catalogue raisonné) have survived, in a manner similar to the work of Louis Marcoussis of the same period.
In Paris from 1923 to 1929, Puni produced quite a few gouaches and watercolours. They are interesting as an element of the artist's creative cuisine: sprawling and uncompromising, these works on paper served Puni a proving ground during a period of particularly intense creative endeavour. In them he refines compositional and colouristic solutions, they are more sketches of paintings, rather than independent pieces. Some of them give such an impression as if they were painted only because the artist could not help but paint, and for speed he used water colours, the first paints that came to hand.
There is a problem with the attribution of Puni's three most famous gouaches, which shone at his posthumous retrospectives, were illustrated in catalogues and even graced the covers of some of them. We are talking about the sheets identical in composition and of the same size as three paintings from the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg ("Violin", "Still Life with Letters and Jug" and "Spectrum Escape of Forms", all three 1919, oil/canvas, acquired in 1926 via the МХК and ГИНХУК). Two of these gouaches are in the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris (gift of Xenia Boguslavskaya, 1966), and one ("Escape of Forms") in the New York's MOMA (acquisition 1972, formerly also in the possession of the artist's widow). In the catalogue raisonné, these gouaches are all dated 1919 and described as sketches for paintings from the Russian Museum.
The presence of three pairs of duplicate works in Puni's legacy has long raised questions. Why does the version about early sketches raise doubts? - this question is discussed in the article Иван Пуни, проблема трех гуашей.
Brief conclusion from the article: The attribution "Ivan Puni, 1919" for the three gouaches in question seems unlikely (no more than 5%). Xana needed her husband's early works for his retrospective exhibitions, and there was no way to obtain them from the Russian Museum at that time. So it is most likely that the gouaches were created by herself or under her supervision in 1959 from photographs she had just brought from Leningrad. Given that Xana was not a stranger to the artist, we believe that these gouaches could be correctly attributed in the spirit of "Workshop of Jean Pougny, 1919/1959".
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Violin. On the left: painting from the Russian Museum, 115 x 145 cm. Ivan Puni, 1919. Acquired from the author through МХК and ГИНХУК (1926). On the right: gouache from the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, gift of Xenia Boguslavskaya (1966), 115 x 146 cm. Suggested attribution for the gouache: Workshop of Jean Pougny, 1919/1959 |
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Still Life with Letters and Jug (the museum title; the author's title is "Bath"). On the left: painting from the Russian Museum, 88 х 88 cm. Ivan Puni, 1919. Acquired from the author through МХК and ГИНХУК (1926). On the right: gouache from the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, gift of Xenia Boguslavskaya (1966), 89 х 89 cm. Suggested attribution for the gouache: Workshop of Jean Pougny, 1919/1959 |
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Spectrum Escape of Forms. On the left: painting from the Russian Museum, dimensions (measured by GRM) 131 х 133. Ivan Puni, 1919. Acquired from the author through МХК and ГИНХУК (1926). On the right: gouache from MOMA, acquired in 1972, previously with Xenia Boguslavskaya, 130 х 131 cm. Suggested attribution for the gouache: Workshop of Jean Pougny, 1919/1959 |