MARGARITA GIL RÖESSET: BIOGRAPHY, STYLE AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Margarita Gil Röesset (1908-1932) was a Spanish sculptor, illustrator and poet who was part of the Generation of 27. Her talents and self-taught abilities have been attributed to the prodigious and extraordinary, her intellectual gifts were surprising.

Margrita Gil's life was short, however she managed to do an impeccable and abundant job, which perhaps has been forgotten. Her works as a poet, sculptor and illustrator were great. Her sculptures were made of different materials, while as a draftsman she used symbolism.

In the poetic area it is known that perhaps his greatest work was his personal diary. Before ending her life, she did it first with almost all of her work, but her sister rescued several, including her intimate confessions with lyrical characteristics.

Biography

Margarita's birth and family

Margarita was born on March 3, 1908 in Las Rozas-Madrid, in the nucleus of a cultured family with money. Due to difficulties during her birth, her life was limited, but her mother did everything for her to live, and give her a promising future full of opportunities.

Her parents were Julián Gil, a military profession, and Margot Röesset, who dedicated herself to the education of her four children from home. It was she who instilled in them a passion for art, and also influenced them to be cultured and speak several languages. Margarita had three siblings: Consuelo, Pedro and Julián.

A genius girl

Margarita Gil demonstrated her qualities as a cartoonist and writer since she was a child. At the age of seven she had the skill to produce a story for her mother, she wrote it and also made the drawings. In 1920, when she was only twelve years old, she was commissioned to illustrate El Niño de Oro, a book written by her sister.

At the age of fifteen, in 1923, together with his older sister, Consuelo, who was three years older, they published the story Rose des bois, in the city of Paris. It was at this time that sculpture began to take an important place in her work as an artist.

Sculpturally unique

Margarita's talent for sculpture made her mother worry and steer her into good hands. Margot wanted her daughter to take classes with the sculptor Víctor Macho, who was surprised by her incomparable gift, and refused to teach her to prevent her genius from being hindered.

Gil's sculptural work did not have any type of influence, or predominance of other sculptors or movements, because she was absolutely self-taught, that is, she learned by herself. Her works were unprecedented, and there were no comparative features in them, she was unique.

Admiration for the Jiménez-Camprubí marriage

Sisters Gil, Margarita and Consuelo, showed admiration for the writer Zenobia Camprubí, wife of the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. The happiness was complete when in 1932 Margarita had the opportunity to meet them both, without imagining that she would fall madly in love with the writer.

He then set about making a sculpture of his admired Zenobia. Shortly after, the young Margarita began to feel overwhelmed by her feelings towards a married man, perhaps her condition as a devoted believer and religious led her to feel guilty for a forbidden love.

A desperate decision

The feeling of an unattainable and unsustainable love led Margarita Gil Röesset to make a desperate and tragic decision. Youth and inexperience led her to attempt on her life on July 28, 1932, when she committed suicide by shooting herself in the head.

Juan Ramón Jiménez, great love of Margarita Gil Röesset. Source: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons Before ending her life, Margarita destroyed part of her works in a fit of anger and despair. She had also given Juan Ramón Jiménez some papers, among which was her personal diary, and the confession of her feelings and passions.

The tomb of the sculptor

The sculptor was buried in the cemetery of the town where she was born, Las Rozas, along with her parents. However, the story of a bomb that fell on her grave during the war tells that its inscription was destroyed, which today makes it difficult to locate.

Expression of a love

The newspaper that came into the hands of Juan Ramón Jiménez by the action of its own author, was later stolen from the writer's house in his time of exile, as were many other documents and works. As a testimony of her love, Margarita wrote the following for Jiménez:

"… And I no longer want to live without you, no I no longer want to live without you… you, how can you live without me, you must live without me…".

"My love is infinite… the sea is infinite… infinite loneliness, I with them, with you! Tomorrow you know, me with the infinite… Monday night. " … In death nothing separates me from you… How I love you ”.

Publication of your diary

After the death of Margarita, both Zenobia and Juan Ramón were affected. So the poet decided to publish the journal that she had given him, and asked him to read later. However, events such as the departure from Spain and the robbery of her home did not allow it to come to light.

Before, some fragments were published in some printed media, and his niece Margarita Clark also did it in the novel Amarga Luz. Years later, in 2015, Carmen Hernández Pinzón, her relative, managed to get the edition of Juan Ramón Jiménez published, entitled: Marga.

Diary content

Margarita Gil's diary not only contained the expression of her love for Juan Ramón Jiménez. She also addressed the relationship she had with her parents, and how they influenced her to do certain jobs; perhaps because of her young age, they assumed that she was not capable of making decisions.

Just as the sculptor sculpted Zenobia Camprubí, she also wished to do it with her great love. However, as she herself wrote in the diary, her father did not want to, and when finishing the sculpture of Jiménez's wife, he must have started with some drawings of Don Quixote.

"Oh discouragement, disappointment, life… My father has told me seriously… irrevocable: 'Marga, you are going to finish Zenobia's head… but finish it… to immediately start with Don Quixote and until you finish it… you don't do anything at all… we're'!".

"And Juan Ramón, dad!"

"… Man… later, by September, when you finish Don Quixote… at the same time… by no means…".

This tribute that Juan Ramón Jiménez paid to Margarita was reduced, but loaded with painstaking dedication. The daily Marga consisted of about sixty-eight pages, mostly the original papers, accompanied by some writings by Jiménez and Zenobia Camprubí.

Style

Margarita Gil Röesset began to develop her talents as a child, and she did so with unique maturity and dedication.

Illustrations

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, creator of The Little Prince, and who was inspired by the illustrations of Margarita Gil Röesset to illustrate his work. Source: Distributed by Agence France-Presse, via Wikimedia Commons His illustrations were worthy of ingenuity and creativity, far removed from the drawings of a six-year-old infant; they were perfect and accurate. As an illustrator, she managed to combine symbolism with modernism, which is how her genius was demonstrated.

Writing

Margarita Gil was a poet, through her personal and intimate diary she left her deepest feelings and passions reflected. Her lyrics were anguished and desperate, written without any kind of metric or rhythm, they were only the expression of what she carried inside.

Sculpture

Margarita's sculptural work was unmatched, because when she learned by herself, she did not receive any type of influence. Her sculptures were within the features of modernism and avant-garde, they were always innovative and original.

Margarita carved in wood, granite and stone. With a use of well-cared forms, and with infallible precision, her sculptures also had deep meanings, related to life, creation, all the product of her cultured education.

Plays

Sculptures

Some scholars of her sculptural work, including the expert Ana Serrano, affirm that in 2015 there were only about sixteen figures of Margarita Gil left, because ten more were replicas. The expert on the sculptor's art asserted:

"They are like ghosts, big… strong, granite, avant-garde… a male critic would say virile."

The following are his best known sculptures:

- Adam and Eve (1930).

- Group (1932).

- Zenobia Camprubí (1932).

Literature, illustrations

- The golden child (1920).

- Rose des bois (1923).

- Children's songs (1932).

His illustrations and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

For a time it has been believed that the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was inspired by Margaret to illustrate The Little Prince (1943). This issue is due to the drawings that Gil made for the book Children's Songs of her sister Consuelo, which was published a year after the suicide of the writer.

The similarity of the drawings in the classic work of the writer and also French pilot with those of the Spanish Margarita Gil, could be due, perhaps, to the various visits that Exupéry made to Spain. Ana Serrano, the student of the sculpture work, affirms that the two got to know each other.

References

1. Margarita Gil Röesset. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org.
2. Marcos, A. (2015). Who was Marga Gil and why should you be interested (beyond her suicide by Juan Ramón Jiménez). Spain: Verne-El País. Recovered from: verne.elpais.com.
3. Las Sinsombrero: the brief life of Margarita Gil Röesset. (2018). (N / a): The Indomitable Friend. Recovered from: amigoindómita.com.
4. Serrano, A. (Sf). Marga Gil Röesset. 1908-1932. Spain: Wanadoo. Recovered from: perso.wanadoo.es.
5. Cabanillas, A. (2015). Marga Gil Röesset's diary. Spain: M Arte y Cultura Visual. Recovered from: m-arteyculturalvisual.com.