Sans titre sans titre
sans titre, Pigeon, Laure, 1948

Pigeon, Laure

1882-1965, France

Pigeon, Laure,

Laure Pigeon was born in Paris to a laundress and a day labourer. After her mother died, Laure Pigeon – then just 5 years old – went to live with her paternal grandmother in Brittany, where she received a strict upbringing. Biographical information about her is piecemeal, with no record of her life before she married a dental surgeon at the age of 34. In 1933, she left her husband and ended their 16-year relationship after discovering he had been cheating on her. She moved into a boarding house, where she met a woman who introduced her to spiritualism. A decade or so later, she took up residence in an apartment in the suburbs of Paris, where she pursued her spiritualist practice alone.

Laure Pigeon started drawing in 1935. Her early works feature interlacing lines that stretch and wind across the page like woven threads, tracing forms and the outlines of words. In 1953, she began working almost exclusively in blue ink, creating mysterious, densely packed compositions. She claimed her hands were guided by an outside entity. Her drawings were sometimes based on words – often names – and occasionally incorporated profiles, birds and other figurative details. Her works were discovered in her home after her death.

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