Giuseppe Capogrossi was born in Rome on March 7, 1900. He graduated in Law at La Sapienza University in 1922, but he had always been interested in painting. Initially studying under Gianbattista Conti, he later enrolled at Felice Carena’s Free School of Nude in 1923, where he established lasting friendships with Fausto Pirandello and Emanuele Cavalli.
In the 1930s, he spent periods in Paris, where he was fascinated by the works of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Inspired by their artistry, he developed a figurative style characterized by tonalism and a deep appreciation for classical tradition. In 1927 he participated for the first time to a group exhibition at the Hôtel Pensione Dinesen in Rome with Emanuele Cavalli, and again in Collettiva no. 144 of the Bragaglia Art House. In 1928 he was among the artists selected for the 17th Venice Biennale. In 1933 Capogrossi, Cavalli and Melli drafted the Manifesto of plastic primordialism which was followed in December by a group exhibition at the Bonjean Gallery in Paris. It was presented by critic Waldemar George, who first referred to this group as Ecole de Rome, hence that of Roman School which identified the artists who had developed an original and universal language while maintaining their local and national character.
In 1940, Capogrossi held his inaugural solo exhibition at the Galleria San Marco in Rome, marking the beginning of a decade fraught with profound artistic crisis. This period witnessed his departure from tonalism and, following a brief interest in neo-Cubism, ultimately led him towards complete abstraction and the prominence of the sign in his work. Capogrossi’s second artistic phase, characterized by a deep exploration of the significance of the sign in painting, emerged in a 1950 exhibition at the Galleria del Secolo in Rome. This approach, which involved utilizing a form-sign treated as a verb in various spatial configurations, was subsequently showcased in exhibitions in Milan at the Galleria del Milione and in Venice at the Galleria del Cavallino.
In Milan, Capogrossi met Mario Ballocco, with whom he began a collaboration that would lead, in 1951, to the founding of the group Origin with Alberto Burri and Ettore Colla. That year, he participated in the international exhibition Véhémences Confrontées, held in Paris and curated by Michel Tapié. Several international exhibitions and recognition followed: in 1952-53 he participated in the traveling exhibition curated by James Johnson Sweeney Younger European Painters. A selection for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; from 1955 is the group show The New Decade: 22 European Painters and Sculptors at MoMa, during which one of his works was acquired by the museum’s collections. In 1958 Leo Castelli dedicate to him a solo exhibition in his space in New York. Ten years later, in 1968, the director of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, Palma Bucarelli, dedicated an entire room to Capogrossi’s works. The artist died in Rome on October 9, 1972.