Lauran knew from age 12 he would be a painter. He enrolled at the Lyon Beaux-Arts in 1941 but left after six months, finding the teaching too rigid. That brief Lyon period, however, connected him to a circle of young artists who would found the "Sanzisme" movement — a reaction against the deliberately abstract Second School of Paris, seeking a path that transcended the rupture between figuration and abstraction. In 1950 he married Véronique Veron, also an artist whose work appears in this same show. He spent 1951–53 living in the United States, then returned to become a drawing teacher in Paris while continuing to exhibit. His beach scenes of the Norman coast — Trouville, Deauville, Cannes — are among his most characteristic works, combining loose observation with expressive economy. His work is held in the Musée national d'Art moderne (Paris) and the Musée de Valence.