Giuseppe Capogrossi

Born in 1900 in Rome, Italy; dies in 1972 in Rome, Italy.
Capogrossi obtains his law degree, before dedicating himself to painting. In 1923, he attends the Libera Scuola di Nudo di Felice Carena where he meets Emanuele Cavalli, with whom he exhibits for the first time at the Dinesen Hotel in Rome, in 1927. In 1933, he participates in an exhibition at the Galleria Bonjean Paris, with Cagli and Cavalli. The critic Waldemar George uses the term Ecole de Rome. In 1940, he teaches “figure drawing” at art school in Rome, until he is appointed as lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples in 1966. Capogrossi briefly experiments with neocubism (1947-49), but he finds his style in a more rigorous abstract form, characterised by the repetition of a single sign. From 1950, he exhibits in Italy and abroad in numerous solo and group exhibitions; he is given a room at the XXXI Venice Biennale in 1962, winning the first prize for painting, ex-aequo with Ennio Morlotti. In 1971, he participates to the XI Biennial of Sao Paulo, where he wins the Twenty years of Biennale and at the International engraving of Ljubljana, he wins the Prix d’honneur. In the same year, the Ministry of Education awards him with a gold medal for cultural merits. Capogrossi has numerous group exhibitions including Galerie Nina Dausset, Paris (1951); Guggenheim Museum (1953); Venice Biennale (1954, 1962); Documenta, Kassel (1955, 1959); Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (1958, 1961); and Tate Gallery, London (1964). He holds various solo shows including the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1957); Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (1958); Palais des beaux-arts, Brussels (1959); and Galleria L’attico, Rome (1962). In 1974, two years after Capogrossi’s death, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, organises his first major posthumous retrospective.