Born into a large merchant family in Tambov Province, Ivan Kounin started his journalistic career in Saint Petersburg, in 1915, where he was known for his exceptional knowledge of English, German and French. While on a writing assignment in the Russian Far East, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 compelled him to cross the Chinese border and settle in Harbin. There he worked as an agent for the opera tenor A. Labinsky and as a journalist at the China East Railway Herald. The newspaper sent Kounin on research assignments to Europe and the United States, where he interviewed top government officials and cultural icons, such the US President Calvin Coolidge, the French dancer Mistinguett, the cinema actors Ivan Mosjoukine and Vera Kholodnaya, and many others.

Kounin spent close to a decade travelling, lecturing on modern culture and publishing his reports in international magazines; all that time he remained stateless. In autumn 1933, he settled in Shanghai, where he started to collaborate with the commercial artist Alexander Yaron, eventually forming a company with him, Adcraft Studios. The company produced photographic reports of events, studio photography, graphic advertising, design, book illustrations and cultural promotions. Among their products were the programmes and booklets for the Russian Light Opera and posters for performances. All their publications were renowned for their creative design, high-quality binding and tasteful presentation.

The visit to Shanghai of the world-famous opera singer Fedor Chaliapine, in January 1936, prompted Kounin to produce an illustrated book with recollections of his encounters with the celebrity, going back to his childhood. The bilingual Russian-English volume took one month to finish, and although none of the Chinese typesetters knew foreign languages, they successfully saw the production to its completion. The book was positively received by the public and by Chaliapine himself.

In 1936, Kounin and Yaron published a large hardcover volume commemorating 85 years of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, which contained historic essays and rare photographic documentation. In 1937, Kounin travelled to the USA to pitch a screenplay about the Chinese Republic, titled Cavalcade in China, intended for production in Hollywood. The project was not realised, and Kounin returned to Shanghai, immersing himself in publishing again.

At the end of 1938, Kounin and Yaron published their first illustrated magazine – Highlights of Art. The back pages of the magazine announced the upcoming release of a new almanac, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the founding of Shanghai’s International Settlement. Although that event passed without celebration, its significance was lavishly recorded in the pages of the Diamond Jubilee of the International Settlement of Shanghai (1940), the crowning achievement of Adcraft Studios, which took two years to finish. Aside from detailed essays and photographic reports, the 342-page book contained 138 original artworks, mostly by Russian émigré artists, with Mikhail Kichigin, Vera Kuznetzova, Alexander Yaron, Victor Podgoursky and Vasily Zasipkin among them.

When the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949, Shanghai’s émigré society dispersed. Ivan Kounin, his wife Galina and son Alexander found their way Paraguay, where Kounin died in 1964. His brothers and sisters, who had stayed in the Soviet Russia, knew nothing about his life, career success and legacy, except from a brief exchange of letters in the early 1950s. It is only in recent years, with the emergence of Kounin’s publications at antique auctions worldwide, that the growing value of his chronicling of Shanghai’s cultural life came back into the spotlight. Irina Kounin Kirk (1926–1992), his daughter from his first marriage, in Harbin, followed in her father’s footsteps; she authored several books, some of which recalled her life in China.