Jean Pougny

Jean Albert Pougny, whose real name was Ivan Puni, was of Italian descent: his grandfather was the composer César Puni and his father was a violinist. He was attracted to art from an early age, but from 1900 to 1908 was educated in the corps of cadets at St Petersburg, despite having no interest in the army. During 1908-1909 he received an academic education and in 1910 he spent his first period of time in Paris, where he was a student at the Académie Julian and other private academies, and was very impressed by Fauvism and Cubism. In 1912 he travelled to Italy, then returned to St Petersburg and married Xenia Bogouslavskaya. (She survived him by many years, coming almost every day to put flowers on his Russian Orthodox grave in Montparnasse Cemetery.) In 1913-1914 he again went to Paris, returning to St Petersburg after the declaration of war in 1914 and becoming friends there with Maïakovski and Khlebnikov.