As celebrations were held to mark 170 years since Victor Hugo arrived in Guernsey, a new bust was unveiled made by sculptor and designer Nicole Farhi CBE, MRSS.
The bust will be on public display at Guernsey Museum at Candie Gardens, until the new Victor Hugo Centre is ready to host it.
The new centre will be in the former States offices on the North Esplanade with work due to start once enough money has been raised to pay for the redevelopment works.
So far more than £6.5 million has been raised, which is nearly 90% of the Centre’s capital campaign target and around 70% of its overall goal, which includes capital works and endowment funding.
Larry Malcic, Chair of the Victor Hugo Centre, told Express that “the Victor Hugo Center has reached a really important tipping point”.
“Last year, when we went to the Art Sunday, people said ‘what is the Victor Hugo Centre?’ And ‘why do we need it?’ This year the question was ‘when does it open?’ And ‘when can we go and see it?’ And so I think that it has captured people’s imagination. There is an incredible amount of enthusiasm on the island, and so my job right now is transforming that kind of support and enthusiasm into into a financial commitment so that we can move forward with the project.”
The work to redevelop what was until recently the Tourism Information Centre into a new Victor Hugo Centre, complete with a Performance and Event Space, a Museum and Interpretation Centre, and a Learning Hub will take around two and a half years, said Mr Malcic. And they’re getting closer to being able to start.
“It will be open when we have raised the funding,” he said. “The project itself will take about 30 months to complete, and so it (will start) when our fundraising is complete. But at this point, it’s really a case of, we have strong support from the States of Guernsey, their commitment has been excellent in terms of providing the building on a 50+ year lease, as well as providing a matching grant of £10 for every £20 that we raise. And so it really makes people believe now that it’s possible. You know, a few years ago, when I started, everyone said ‘what a great idea, it’s unfortunate that it probably won’t happen because you need to get the support for it’. But I have found that I’ve been, in effect, pushing on open doors already, because people say we should have done this years ago. And it just takes somebody who really did make the time and effort to make it happen.”
Mr Malcic announced the latest fundraising milestone at the dinner held on Saturday night to make the 170th anniversary of Hugo’s arrival in Guernsey.
Ms Farhi was guest of honour and unveiled her sculpture during the evening.
It is a life-size bronze bust of Hugo when he was 53 years old, which is when he arrived in Guernsey.
“Being French, you cannot not know about Victor Hugo,” she said. “You learn at school about Victor Hugo, you read these books, and you grew up with him because really he is our most famous man. So of course, I knew about him, but I didn’t think about him every day, until Larry came to see me one day, and we chatted. Larry had seen a sculpture of Thomas Gainsborough for a museum that I did a few years ago. He must have asked who did it and had my name in his head, and he sent me an email and asked to meet me, and that very day, I was opening an exhibition that evening about miscarriages of justice, called J’accuse, about people who unjustly were put to jail for crimes they did not commit. And so I was, in a way, in alignment with the philosophy of Victor Hugo and his humanity and the fact that he was a defender of human right and I was going that way in my life as a sculptor so it was a good omen to be offered to do the burst that very same day.”
Ms Farhi spent a few months working on the sculpture, having only been approached to make it in February.
This weekend was her first visit to Guernsey for the unveiling of the finished sculpture on the anniversary of Hugo’s arrival in the island.
Ms Farhi said she learnt so much more about Hugo while working on the bust, as well as learning about Guernsey.
“I didn’t know much (about Guernsey). I knew obviously, he was in exile here and I had some shows or exhibitions in Jersey, and everybody said to me during those past years ‘why don’t you go and see the house of Victor Hugo?’ And I never did, but I always thought one day I will go. But I was busy. When you have an exhibition, you have to be there and it never came the moment to come here.
“So I knew he had spent time here. I knew he had written most of some of his better work, or the most successful, certainly his poetry, Les Miserables, Toilers of the Sea… I knew about all these books, and I read quite a few of them, but my knowledge was artificial. I knew more of the man when I started working on him. I researched the man because that’s what I wanted to come out. I wanted his humanity to appear in the face, his sensuality, his temperament, his broad brows, his intensity, and that’s what I wanted to express. And so I needed to get close to the man.”