
Drawing from poetry and imagination
Thursday 29 May 2025 6.30 - 8pm
Benjamin West Lecture Theatre | Burlington Gardens
Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo
Join artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer to make your own poetic response to Victor Hugo.
Famous for his epic novel Les Misérables, Victor Hugo used his poetry and drawings to dream up dramatic worlds and epic landscapes. During this workshop we will use his imaginative language and imagery as material and inspiration to carve our own fanciful poems and drawings, and find new illumination from these treasures of nineteenth century France.
Inspired by our exhibition Astonishing Things: The Drawings of Victor Hugo, this workshop is an opportunity to use Victor Hugo's vivid language and imagery as material and inspiration with the guidance of artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer .
Whether you’re a seasoned artist and poet, or you’ve never picked up a pencil before, this class is an opportunity to experiment with drawing and writing in our beautiful Benjamin West Lecture Theatre.
Sophie Herxheimer is an artist and poet. Herxheimer has exhibited at Tate Modern and on Margate's seafront. She has also performed and read at Tate Britain, Winchester Poetry Festival, Jewish Book Week, and the Belfast Book Festival. Her recent projects include 16 new images for the British Library’s Voices of the Holocaust collection, a permanent storytelling installation at the Museum of Liverpool, and 90 hand-cut vignettes for Marina Warner’s memoir. Her published works include Velkom to Inklandt (2017), which was The Observer's Poetry Book of the Month and a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and 60 Lovers to Make and Do (2019), named a TLS Book of the Year. Her latest collection, INDEX (2021), features 78 collage poems presented as a deck of prophetic cards.
All materials for this workshop will be provided.
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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