From 21 March to 29 June 2025, the Royal Academy presents the exhibition “Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo”

Source: Royal Academy · Image: Victor Hugo, “The Cheerful Castle”, c. 1847. Pen, brush, pencil, stencil, ink and cardboard on paper, 15.8 x 22.2 cm. Maisons de Victor Hugo, Paris / Guernsey

Victor Hugo was a leading public figure in 19th century France. His books Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame were printed worldwide. As both a poet and a politician, and during his near 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”.

In March 2024, the Royal Academy of Arts will present a comprehensive survey of Hugo’s rarely seen works on paper, which were last exhibited in the UK over 50 years ago. The exhibition will follow Hugo’s preoccupation with drawing, from his early caricatures and travel drawings to his dramatic landscapes and his experiments with abstraction.

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