G.V. Pigulevsky was born on December 10, 1888 (November 28, old style) in Kovno (nowadays Kaunas, Lithuania) in the family of a lawyer Vasily Ivanovich Pigulevsky. There were two other sons in the family - Boris and Vladimir. In 1906, after graduating from the Vilna Gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University. After graduation in 1911, he stayed at the Department of Chemistry at the suggestion of Professor L.A. Chugaev. Since 1912 he simultaneously became a laboratory assistant in the Agricultural Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, in 1914-23 he worked as a scientific specialist of the same committee. At the same time, he lectured at the Psychoneurological Institute (1914-1918). In 1919, he taught analytical chemistry at the Women's Medical Institute.
In 1920 Pigulevsky became a lecturer (since 1929 - associate professor) at Petrograd University (later - Leningrad State University). In 1924-1928, he worked as the head of the laboratory of labor protection of the People's Commissariat for Labour of the North-Western Region. In 1929, Pigulevsky was elected as a professor of the Institute of Chemical Technology. In the same year, he headed the Department of fats and oils of this Institute (1929-1930). In 1931-1934 while continuing to teach at Leningrad State University, Pigulevsky headed the Department of Organic Chemistry at the Arkhangelsk Forestry Engineering Institute. In 1934, he became a professor of organic chemistry at Leningrad State University. At the same time, he headed the laboratory of bioproducts of this University. In 1935, he obtained Doctor of Science in chemistry degree without thesis defense.
In 1941-1942, as a part of a group of chemists Pigulevsky organized the production of medicines (streptocide, phenamine, glucose, sulfidine and sulfazol) in besieged Leningrad. In the summer of 1942, he was evacuated to Kazan. In 1942-1943, he served as a senior researcher at the I.P. Pavlov Physiological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1943, Pigulevsky accepted an invitation to head the biochemical laboratory of the V.L. Komarov Botanical Institute and led it until the end of his life. In 1944, Pigulevsky returned to Leningrad.
After coming back to Leningrad, he again headed the laboratory of bioproducts at Leningrad State University. In 1957, this laboratory was reorganized as the problematic laboratory of natural compounds of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Leningrad State University. Pigulevsky headed it until the end of his life. He died in 1964 in Leningrad.