BOEDO GROUP

Personal archive with correspondence, original poems and illustrations, and first editions.

Exceptional collection assembled by the poet Antonio Alejandro Gil (1894 - 1952), member of the Boedo group (1), author of “Cielo de aljibe” (1927), “Extramuros” (1931), “Poemas” and “Bienquerer” ( 1939) and "Tinajas" (1952). This group was born in the 1920s and since its inception it has been very closely linked with the workers from a perspective of militant cultural creation. We find in this archive the voice of several of its protagonists, a quarry of study to delve into the history of their intellectual evolution.

The collection includes among other handwritten sheets, poems by Alvaro Yunque, by Juan F. Mazaroni (Carlos Gardel sang songs of his authorship); a set of letters sent by César Tiempo, a letter from Nicolás Guillén and even a correspondence from Elías Castelnuovo addressed to Omar Viñole. And of the own authorship of A. A. Gil, the complete manuscript of ”Tribunal. A musical sainete that happened in a court ”and several others, including two musical manuscripts.

Regarding the collected correspondence, the most extensive sets are grouped around comments received on three of the published books: “Cielo de aljibe”, “Bienquerer” and “Tinajas”. His texts are written and signed by a large number of authors; among them, Benito Quinquela Martín (“My dear poet and friend”, it begins); the poets Susana Esther Soba and Ida Reboli; the critics Córdoba Iturburu and Luis E. Soto; his colleagues Germán Berdiales, Aristóbulo Echegaray, Enrique P. Maroni; Leónidas Barletta and the painter Arnoldo Moglione. And the list, very long, continues ...

The archive is enriched with the original manuscript of “Tinajas”, complete, and with Rossi's drawings for the cover of “Bienquerer” (2), other original drawings by Arturo L. Galloni -of this author, also the wooden blocks and metal for printing; and the originals, inks on generously sized paper, around: 26 x 18.8 and 29.5 x 21.5 cm-, and an anonymous one, undoubtedly to illustrate one of his books.

It is accompanied by the books by Antonio A. Gil, Cielo de aljibe, Extramuros, and from 1939, Poemas y Bienquerer, the latter with illustrations by Rossi and Arturo E. Galloni. The first three, dedicated and signed copies.

There are also signed copies of the letters that the poet himself sent, and even the inscription of his work "Tinajas" in the National Registry of Intellectual Property.

Furthermore, as a result of those intimate whims, the archive includes hundreds of frontispieces of books, signed and dedicated to the poet Antonio A. Gil; among many others, by César Tiempo, Pedro Juan Vignale, José Salas Subirat and Juan Scalabrini Ortiz. And a set of family memorabilia, with letters, poems, business cards, and even a folder with newspaper clippings.

And after his death, the file is completed with various notes that allude to the loss of him.

Undoubtedly, a set that deserves a detailed study to extract all the richness that contains so much material and so much communicational intersection between various protagonists of our cultural development in the second quarter of the 20th century.

Note:

1. Around 1925 it was part of a unique book, “5 Poemas”, edited by Minerva, with works by five Boedo poets, Álvaro Yunque, Rodolfo Tallon, Juan Guijarro, José Sebastián Tallón and Gil himself.

2. Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales, in A history of the illustrated book in Argentina (1910 - 1936), dedicates several pages to this artist and states: “To revalue the work of Atilio Rossi in the field of Argentine graphics, until his return to Europe in 1951 is one of the accounts that art historians still have pending”.