Curator talk: Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo
Talk
Friday 28 March 2025 11am - 12pm
Benjamin West Lecture Theatre | Burlington Gardens
Curator Sarah Lea uncovers the imaginary worlds of Victor Hugo in these rarely-seen works on paper.
In this talk, Sarah Lea will introduce our exhibition Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo. Join us to discover the lesser-known drawings from one of France’s most famous writers, from early caricatures to dramatic and more experimental works.
Lea will take us through some of Victor Hugo’s finest works on paper; works which inspired a generation of Romantic, Symbolist and Surrealist artists and poets, including Vincent van Gogh.
Sarah Lea is an art historian and curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. She has curated major exhibitions including Francis Bacon: Man and Beast (2022), Making Modernism: Paula Modersohn-Becker, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin (2022-23) and Entangled Pasts, 1768 – now: Art, Colonialism and Change (2024).
The event will be accompanied by speech-to-text transcription courtesy of Stagetext.
If you have any access requirements that you’d like to discuss, please contact public.programmes@royalacademy.org.uk.
Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo
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