Born in Paris, Georges Bigot attended the School of Fine Arts in this city, where his teachers were Jean-Léon Gérôme and Carolus-Duran. He made his debut around 1880 as an illustrator for La Vie Moderne and The World Parisien, before heading for Japan, where he lived from 1882 until 1899. He took lessons in the Japanese language, and also taught painting at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He traveled around the country and launched his own satirical weekly Tobae in Yokohama in 1887. Together with the Brit Charles Wirgman he introduced humorous magazines in the European tradition in Japan, and was thus a pioneer in Japanese political and social cartooning. Bigot became especially known in for his satirical cartoons about life in the Meiji Period in Japan.
Back in France around the turn of the century, his art returned in French papers, such as Le Chat Noir, Le Rire and Le Gil Blas Illustré. In 1904, he chronicled the Russian-Japanese war in L'Illustration. Bigot eventually settled in Bièvres, Essonne, and began a prolific collaboration with the Imagerie Pellerin in Epinal between 1906 and 1915. For this publisher, he made several picture stories about Asian folklore, which he signed Shidari-Kiki, among other pages. Another comic story by Bigot was 'La Vie d'un Joueur ou les Apaches du Grand Monde' in L'Épatant in 1911. He then pursued a career as an illustrator for Les Romans Militaires and La Baïonette.
