In the fall of 1922, Lissitzky met Sophie Küppers, who was closely associated with the Köstner Society (her late husband, who had died a few months earlier, had been the director of the Society’s art gallery for 6 years), an organization founded to promote culture and arts in Hanover. The Society arranged exhibitions, performances, recitals, and it printed art catalogs. Sophie was greatly impressed by the work of the Russian artist (and later she became his wife), and her recommendations yielded support for Lissitzky from the Society in various forms: the Köstner Society provided him with a studio to work in, arranged a solo exhibition and ordered a portfolio of lithographs. This portfolio was printed in an edition of 50 copies and consisted of 6 lithographs of the Prouns plus a cover and a title page (there is a leaf missing in the set that belongs to the Tretyakov Gallery).

Lissitzky placed a brief comment on the title page: “These works, PROUNS, were created in 1919–1923. Moscow, Berlin”. None of the lithographed Prouns reproduced the works made in 1919, but it was important for Lissitzky to designate a reference point, the moment he invented the new trend.

Two lithographs related to the Grand Berlin Art Exhibition that took place in May 1923. Lissitzky was given a small room at his disposal at the exhibition where he mounted the installation “The Proun Room” (“Prounenraum”). A leaf from the portfolio is the layout of the room with the installations displayed on the walls; another is a lithographed central fragment of one of the installation compositions. Proun 1 was often exhibited with the title “New Man” in foreign exhibitions.