[1][2] A lover of the theater and music, Hugo's father raised her to share his interests until his death in 1903, which was undetermined as suicide or an accident.

Hugo worked on several other of Satie's ballets, including Le Piège de Méduse, Socrate, and Mercure.

[4] Hugo hosted salons with many artists, writers, and musicians in Paris, including avant-garde leaders such as Pablo Picasso, André Breton, and Paul Éluard.

[4] Hugo joined the Bureau of Surrealist Research and created the Objet à fonctionnement symbolique (1931), which was shown during the Exposition surréalistic in 1933.

[6] Hugo participated in the exquisite corpse game practiced by the Surrealists, collaborating on drawings with Breton, Eluard, and many others.

[4] In 1943, Hugo's work was included in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York.

[6] After the war, she went back to stage design for choreography, while continuing to create her paintings "in secret," saving "the haunting element of surprise and chance for the end.

[2] Hugo was primarily known for her drawings, where a fine line against a dark background created and abundance of decorative volutes and superimposed elements.

Her portraits of the leading surrealists and her illustrations for texts by Rene Char and Paul Eluard and for the edition of Achim von Arnim's Strange Tales prefaced by Breton in 1933 are particularly interesting.