Suprematist Construction Montage

1915/1916

Ivan Puni

Sculptor, French, 1894 - 1956

A collection of geometric shapes, many painted a single color, are arranged on a background painted to look like wood grain in this abstract vertical composition. A silvery gray, upside down, wide L shape fills most of the upper half to our right of center. On it, a rose-pink square is attached to an ivory-white rectangle suggestive of a handle, and a black triangle with a similar handle sits on the L form to our left. A rectangular piece of corrugated silver metal is tucked into the corner of the L shape. A black circle, a white conical form, and a curving, sage-green piece create a row from right to left down into the lower left corner of the composition.
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On View

East Building Upper Level, Gallery 415-A

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    painted wood, metal and cardboard

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 69.8 x 48.7 x 7 cm (27 1/2 x 19 3/16 x 2 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1976.70.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Madame Xana Puni, Paris.[1] (Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne), by 1968. (Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York), by 1971. (Fischer Fine Art Limited, London), by 1974; purchased 4 November 1976 by NGA.
[1] See a letter from Trinkett Clark in NGA curatorial files dated 5 July 1978. The letter states that Puni fled Russia in 1919-1920, leaving his work in his studio. In the 1950's, Madame Xana Puni, the artist's wife, rediscovered the works in the possession of a friend of the artist's brother.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1978

  • Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 82, repro.

1980

  • The Russian Avant-Garde, 1910-1930: New Perspectives, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1980-1981, no. 277 (shown only in Washington).

1993

  • Jean Pougny, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 1993, no. 16, repro.

Bibliography

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 178, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63854664

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