And Man Created God in His Own Image

Ivan Puni created this provocative work in 1930, during a pivotal period of artistic transformation. Having emigrated from Russia in 1920 and settled in Paris by 1923, Puni was moving away from his earlier Suprematist and Cubo-Futurist roots toward what would become his mature style—a lyric Primitivism influenced by Post-Impressionists like Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. The title itself is a deliberate inversion of the biblical phrase, suggesting humanity's tendency to project its own image and desires onto the divine. This philosophical questioning reflects the broader existential concerns of the interwar period, when European intellectuals grappled with the aftermath of World War I and the collapse of old certainties. The painting represents Puni working through this stylistic transition, painted around the same time as works like "Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida" (1929-30) and before his style fully stabilized in the early 1940s. By this point, the Russian-born artist had become "Jean Pougny" in France, navigating between his revolutionary avant-garde past and his evolving European identity.