Veno Pilon was born in 1896 in Ajdovščina, a little town in the West of Slovenia, which belonged to the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. He studied at the Liceo di Gorizia, where he distinguished himself by the quality of his drawings and became immersed in the culture of Italian and Northern European painting. When he was 18 years old, he was called to the front, later to be taken prisoner by the Russian army and sent to Lipeck in the Don Basin. After the Armistice he returned to Slovenia where he met some of the most renown painters of the country. In 1919 he enrolled in the Art Academy of Prague and came into contact with modern artistic streams, particularly those coming from France. In 1920 he came back to Ajdovščina which in the meantime had belonged to Italy and, in September he entered the Art Academy of Florence where he deepened his knowledge of Rennaissance art and studied the art of engraving with a passion. After returning home he created a series of oil paintings

and soon became one of the most famous Slovenian painters. He started exhibiting in both Slovenia and Italy. In 1924 his etching 'Simple Love' was selected to be presented at the Biennial Exhibition in Venice. Afterwards, his works were presented in Czechoslovakia, in Vienna, Lwow, Berlin, Gorizia, Trieste, and many cities in Yugoslavia. In 1926 he visited Paris and settled there permanently in 1928. For a few years he continued painting, but then he switched to photography. He created a series of beautiful portraits of artists such as De Chirico, Lhote, Zadkine, Campigli, de Pisis, etc. During the 1950's he worked in many different capacities for Nesto Jacometti'a L'Oeuvre Gravée in Paris. Between the 1950's and 60's he returned to graphic art. He cultivated the relationship with his fatherland. In 1954 the Modern Gallery in Ljubljana presented a retrospective of his drawings and engravings and in 1966 a great retrospective exhibited his paintings and photographs.

In 1968 his 'Oracle of Painters' appeared in Paris with typographie by his friend Jean Vodaine, with riddles on the most important artists of the 20th Century for curious friends and experts. After his wife's death he returned to Ajdovščina. He lived here till his death in 1970, afterwards his son Dominique donated his work to Ajdovščina where the Pilon Gallery was founded to preserve the artistic legacy of this great personality and multifarious creator.