Kseniya Boguslavskaya
Kseniya Boguslavskaya, also known as Xana Puni, was a Russian avant-garde artist, illustrator and scenic designer. She was the wife of the painter Ivan Puni.
Biography
Xana was born in Odessa as Xenia Bogoslovskaya.Her father Leonid Ivanovich Bogoslovsky 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, 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, 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. Soon Ivan left for Russia, and Xana attended Parisian public schools until May 1913. Then she returned to Saint Petersburg under the surname Boguslavskaya.
In St. Petersburg she joined Puni 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", organization of exhibitions Tramway V und 0,10 and the decoration of Petrograd for the revolutionary holydays. In 1919 they went to Witebsk in order to teach at the Art School founded by Marc Chagall.
Berlin period
In 1920 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 Ruggero Vasari 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, she organized around 20 retrospective exhibitions of Puni and prepared material for his catalog of works, which was published in 1972 and 1992. In 1959/1960 and in 1966 she donated a total of 62 works by Puni to the French state.Xenia Boguslavskaya died on May 3, 1972 in Herblay-sur-Seine near Paris.
Selected exhibition
- 1915. Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10, Dobychina Gallery, St. Petersburg
- 1922. First Russian Art Exhibition, Berlin.
- 2002. The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–1934. Museum of Modern Art, NYC.