Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo, The Town of Vianden Seen Through a Spider’s Web, 1871, pen, ink wash, graphite, watercolor, 25.5 x 30.3 cm., Maisons de Victor Hugo, Paris

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a leading public figure in 19th-century France. His books Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame were printed worldwide. As both a poet and a politician, during his nearly twenty-year exile in the Channel Islands, he came to symbolise the ideals of the French republic: equality and freedom.

In private, his refuge was drawing. Hugo’s ink and wash visions of imaginary castles, monsters and seascapes are as poetic as his writing. His works inspired Romantic and Symbolist poets, and many artists including the Surrealists. Vincent van Gogh compared them to “astonishing things”.

This exhibition follows Hugo’s preoccupation with drawing, from his early caricatures and travel drawings to his dramatic landscapes and his experiments with abstraction. It features some of his finest works on paper, which are rarely on public display and were last seen in the UK over 50 years ago.

Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts in collaboration with Paris Musées – Maison de Victor Hugo and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.