Pierre Bonnaud was a French Academic Painter. In 1883 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyons, where he was taught by J.B. Poncet. He then went to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teachers were Jean-Paul Laurens, Gustave Moreau, Bonnat and Gérôme. The colour harmonies Bonnaud learned from Gustave Moreau are most in evidence in his unsentimental portraits of Salomé and Diana.
Pierre Bonnaud exhibited at the Lyons Salon from 1888, winning a medal of honour in 1899, and at the Paris Salon from 1891.