The artist Jacinta Gil wrote on February 25, 1963: “At nine o’clock in the morning The police came for me. Now I’m in charge. It’s the beginning of a story about what the Valencian experienced on the day she was jailed for her ties to the Communist Party and a crime of rebellion. this text manuscript is part of the documentation that the Valencian Institute of Modern Art has just received as a donation (IVAM)by the researcher and collaborator of Levante EMC, from Prensa Ibérica, Tomas Rosello.
Overall, Roselló’s donation is a documentary “of great value” for the study and investigation of the life and work of Gil (1917-2014). This material “will shed light on a time as interesting as the time of his imprisonment in 1962 and 1963and everything that fact meant for the artist,” they explain to the IVAM. The collection consists of 18 documentary units, dated between 1962 and 1996, which can be divided into administrative documents about his imprisonment and personal writings of This moment in his life consists of 10 poems and a 26-page typescript, in which Gil tells of his arrest, his interrogation and his imprisonment.
His activism and ties to the Communist Party led to his Detention in the model prison of Valencia (1962) and later in that of Alcala de Henares (1963). “The hard experience that the two stays in Franco’s prisons brought with them becomes clear in the poems and diaries that accompany the donation,” says the IVAM.
Handwritten pages from the daily notebook in which Jacinta Gil recounts the first nine days of her incarceration.
interrogation and prison
The documentation includes 26 typed sheets of July 8, 1962, in which he reports his arrest, interrogation and imprisonment; 10 poems written in the prison of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid); The Invoice for work carried out in the Alcalá de Henares prison in the carpet department; a typescript by Gil del Día del Carmen in Alcalá de Henares prison; the conditional release certificate dated October 26, 1963 or the copy of the final certificate of release dated November 4, 1974.
Roselló’s interest in Gil “is based on a need to help document and contextualize the work of women artists, who often worked behind the scenes with their husbands, were also renowned artists, or who failed to gain some degree of recognition in life. mainly due to the limitations of current society. In the specific case of Jacinta Gil, I have a very special interest because she is one Artist who campaigns politically for gender equality and freedom in our country during the Franco regime,” says the researcher.
As for the origin of this documentation, he explains that he received it through a contact from a Collecting website to which already in 2020 he bought some letters and postcards addressed to Jacinta Gil to donate them to the IVAM, which was officially founded in the same year. “On the day I stayed to collect the above letters in person, the seller, who had been linked to one of Gil’s descendants, told me that he also had records of his stay in prison. Two years later, I suggested to the seller that they buy them to donate to IVAM as well.”
Roselló defines himself as “a Individual with discrete purchasing power, but very sensitive to the preservation of the artistic and architectural heritage” and would therefore like to “make its contribution with small contributions”. “Unfortunately, public museums, which are dependent on management for bureaucracy and regulations, in many cases have real difficulties in being sufficiently flexible in directly sourcing documents or works such as this, and I have therefore felt it necessary to extend these two.” carry out actions.” small donations,” explains Roselló.
Invoice for work carried out in the carpet department in Alcalá de Henares prison, dated August 28, 1963. LEVANTE-EMV
life and work
Jacinta Gil (Valencia, 1917-2014) began his exhibition career with a joint exhibition with Jose Meseguer at Galerías Layetanas (Barcelona) in 1941, the same year that he began his training at Galerías Layetanas (Barcelona). School of Fine Arts Valencia. Along with her peers, she participated in the spirit of renewal of the Valencian art scene and was one of the few women to participate in the avant-garde impulse. In 1946 he received the silver medal at the VI. University art exhibition, at the opening of which he met the painter Manolo Gil, with whom he married and developed an important artistic activity. A year later he participated in the founding of Grupo Z, dedicated to the renewal of the Valencian art scene.
In 1950 he moved to Madrid and made a number of trips there Rome, Paris and London, until his return to Valencia in 1952. After completing his training, his work presents informal approaches to both the treatment of matter and textures. In 1956, Vicente Aguilera Cerni invited her to join a new group of artists whose aim was to renew Valencian plastic arts: the Parpallo group. He participated in the first phase of the group until 1959. His artistic consolidation took place between 1957 and 1964 and at this point he turned to expressive painting in his work, in which he dealt with the socio-political situation in Spain in a clearly critical manner. This activism and his association with the Communist Party led to his arrest.
“Subsequently, her work combines abstraction and figuration in a coming and going that reflects the variety of registers and the artistic journey through different plastic experiences of a fundamental artist for the study of the development of Valencian plastic culture in the second half of the century. 20th century”, they explain from the IVAM. “There is an opportunity to donate this important documentation collection to the IVAM collection.” great opportunity to complete the funds Archives of the museum containing some fundamental documents for the study and investigation of Gil’s life and work,” they conclude.
