Les Misérables pour rire / Les Misérables Just for Laughs
An Exhibit from the Collection of Gérard Pouchain
January 21-February 28, 2017
Rotunda Upper West Oval Room | 9 am-5 pm, FREE

Before it was made into over fifty films and an award-winning musical, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables was a rampant best seller when it appeared in 1862.  And the popular cartoonists who had caricatured Hugo for thirty years leapt at the chance to satirize his epic novel.

At UVA, for the first time, Gérard Pouchain exhibits original publications of Les Misérables caricatures—ranging from parodies to comic sketches of the author with his characters.

On Monday, January 23, 2:00-3:30 pm in the Upper West Oval room, Gérard Pouchain will visit with exhibit goers and sign exhibition catalogues.  Then, at 4:00 pm in the Rotunda Dome Room, he will give his illustrated French presentation: “La caricature au service de la gloire, ou Victor Hugo raconté par le portrait-charge”

Gérard Pouchain, formerly professeur agrégé at the Lycée Buffon, is currently a researcher associate at the Centre d’Études et de Recherche Éditer/Interpréter (CÉRÉdI), Université de Rouen.  Author of a detailed biography of Hugo’s long-time lover, Juliette Drouet, M. Pouchain has curated—and edited catalogues for—numerous exhibitions of caricatures of Victor Hugo in Europe, the United States, China, and Cuba.  In 2008, the French government recognized his contributions to literary and historical studies by naming him Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.

Sponsored by an Arts Endowment Grant, the Department of French, the Vice Provost for the Arts, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, and the Department of Drama.

Gérard Pouchain at his Victor Hugo Festival exhibit on Guernsey, April 2016