Ivan Puni (Russian, 1892-1956) gouache on paper avant-garde portrait of a woman handling a ball. Signed by the artist lower center. Circa the 1910s. Framed. Ivan Albertovich Puni (also known as Jean Pougny) was a Russian avant-garde artist working as a suprematist and Cubo-futurist. He took private lessons in drawing with Ilya Repin in St. Petersburg, and by 1909 Puni was already working in his own studio. After a short period of study at the Académie Julian in Paris, he returned to St. Petersburg and married the artist Kseniya Boguslavskaya. About this time he met the leading avant-garde artists - David Burlyuk, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov, and Velimir Khlebnikov - and his apartment became a center of contemporary art in St. Petersburg.