Odette du Puigaudeau

Odette Loyen du Puigaudeau (20 July 1894 – 19 July 1991) was a French ethnologist, traveler and journalist. With artist Marion Sénones (1886–1977), she made three trips to northern Africa to conduct field research among the nomads of the western Sahara region.

Biography Puigaudeau was born 1894 in Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Inférieur), France, the only child of Ferdinand du Puigaudeau (1864–1930), a painter of the Pont-Aven School, and a mother who was a portrait painter. Beginning in 1908, the family lived in Le Croisic (Loire-Atlantique) in the manor of Kervaudu. She was educated at home by her parents.

In 1920, she moved to Paris to study oceanography at the Sorbonne hoping to find employment at the marine laboratory in Carthage, Tunisia, in northern Africa, but that effort proved to be unsuccessful. She then took a variety of jobs: as a designer in the laboratories of the Collège de France, a stylist at the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin and a journalist at L'Intransigeant and in women's magazines. )

Later years Accompanied by Sénones, Puigaudeau moved to Rabat, Morocco in 1961, where she produced cultural radio programs from 1961 to 1962, and worked at the Ministry of Information in 1963. She "took over management of a very young Moroccan prehistory office" at the archaeological museum of Rabat from 1970 to 1977, when Sénones passed away.

Odette du Puigaudeau, Marion Sénones, Gravures rupestres du Hank (Sahara Marocain), Bulletin de la Société préhistorique de France, vol. 36, n°11, 1939, pp. 437–453. Sénones, Marion, Odette du Puigaudeau, Peintures rupestres du Tagant (Mauritanie), Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 9, n°1, 1939, pp. 43–70. Odette du Puigaudeau, « Gravures rupestres de la Montagne d'Icht (Sud Marocain), Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 11, n°1, 1941, pp. 147–156. Sénones, Marion, Odette du Puigaudeau, Gravures rupestres de la Vallée moyenne du Draa (Sud Marocain) Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 11, n°1, 1941, pp. 157–168. Odette du Puigaudeau, illustré de 30 croquis de route de Marion Sénones, de 46 photographies de l'auteur et de 2 cartes, couverture de Chas Boré, La route de l'ouest (Maroc-Mauritanie, Éditions J.Susse, 1945. Odette du Puigaudeau, Grandeur des îles, Julliard, 1946; Julliard 1989; Payot 1996 (preface by Monique Vérité). Odette du Puigaudeau, Marion Sénones, Le Cimetière de Bir'Umm Garn, Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 17, n°1, 1947, pp. 51–56. Odette du Puigaudeau, illustré de 25 croquis de route de Marion Sénones, de 24 photographies de l'auteur et de 3 cartes. Tagant (Mauritanie), Julliard, 1949. Senones Marion, Odette du Puigaudeau, Vestiges préislamiques de la région d'Assa, Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 22, n°1, 1952, pp. 7–15. Odette du Puigaudeau, avec 31 dessins dans le texte de Marion Sénones, 22 illustrations hors texte et sept cartes, La piste Maroc-Sénégal, Plon, 1954.