Irène Lagut (1893–1994) was a French painter and illustrator active in the Parisian avant-garde during the early 20th century. Through her companion, the Russian-born painter Serge Férat, and his cousin, the writer and artist Hélène d’Œttingen, she entered a circle that included Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Marc Chagall.
In January 1917, Apollinaire organised an exhibition of Lagut’s drawings and watercolours alongside paintings by Léopold Survage at the Galerie Bongard in Paris. The catalogue included a preface by the poet, who became one of her closest friends. Lagut also integrated the circle of Les Soirées de Paris, the avant-garde journal associated with Apollinaire and Férat. In 1916, she began a turbulent relationship with Picasso, which continued intermittently until 1923.
Lagut continued exhibiting throughout the 1920s, including at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants and Galerie Percier, where André Level organised two solo exhibitions in 1923 and 1928. She also worked with writers and theatre practitioners. In 1921, she illustrated Raymond Radiguet’s Devoirs de vacances and designed the stage decor for Jean Cocteau’s ballet Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel, performed by the Ballets Suédois in Paris. Her paintings frequently depicted women, children and circus performers.
Lagut spent her later years in the south of France, living in Monflanquin before settling in Castellar, near Menton. She died in Menton in 1994, aged 101. Her work is represented in the Centre Pompidou, which holds her Portrait de Serge Férat, acquired in 2021.