George Valentine Dureau (December 28, 1930 – April 7, 2014) was an American artist whose long career was most notable for charcoal sketches and black and white photography of poor white and black athletes, dwarfs, and amputees.

[1] Robert Mapplethorpe is said to have been inspired by Dureau's amputee and dwarf photographs, which showed the figures as "exposed and vulnerable, playful and needy, complex and entirely human individuals.

[3][4] He graduated with a fine arts degree from LSU in 1952, after which he began architectural studies at Tulane University.

Before being able to survive as an artist, he worked for Kreeger's, a New Orleans department store, as a display designer/window dresser.

His friend and student, Robert Mapplethorpe restaged many of his earlier black and white photographs.