Édouard Pignon was a French painter and ceramicist from Pas-de-Calais in northern France. The son of a miner, he witnessed devastating injuries and deaths from a pit explosion as well as brutalities during strikes. During the First World War, his school closed, and he spent his days in his mother’s coffee shop ten kilometres from the front. When a soldier stopped one day and drew the boy’s portrait on his way to the trenches, Pignon knew he wanted to paint.

After working in the mines and a factory, he moved to Paris in 1931, worked for Renault and attended evening painting classes at the Boulevard Montparnasse School. He joined the Communist Party in 1933 and the Resistance during the Second World War. In 1937, he contributed to an exhibition that included works by Bazaine and Tal Coat, and later that year exhibited with Braque, Léger and Picasso, who became a close friend for three decades. Inspired by Léger, his first exhibition in 1939 at the Salon des Indépendants featured paintings of mines, factories and union meetings.

Pignon later married journalist Hélène Parmelin, travelled widely, and regularly stayed with Picasso in Vallauris, painting and making pottery. Picasso likely introduced him to Mourlot, with whom he created many lithographs and posters. Throughout his life, Pignon was politically driven and refused association with any artistic movement or Academy.