Victor Hugo : Dessins

Exhibition at the Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris, 1 April - 29 August 2021

Although Victor Hugo was reluctant to show his drawings during his lifetime, leading artists have since recognised his audacity, such as André Breton, who saw in them "paintings in which the most powerful imagination takes flight". The Houses of Victor Hugo, Paris/Guernsey, now hold more than seven hundred sheets, including many masterpieces.

This exhibition catalogue endeavours to follow the poet's intense graphic fever step by step, year after year, making this study a true monograph. The work reveals the incredible fertility and the full freedom of a writer-drawer whose eyes and pen never ceased to search for the obscure.