- Also known as
-
Giuseppe Capogrossi
-
primary name: Capogrossi, Giuseppe
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; Roman; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1900-1972
- Biography
- Text from Martin Hopkinson, 'Italian Prints 1875-1975', BMP, 2007
A descendant of an aristocratic family, the Capogrossi Guarna, Capogrossi was born in Rome. Initially he qualified as a lawyer, before, in 1922, deciding to take up painting and to attend the Scuola del Nudo, run by Felice Carena in Rome. Capogrossi became close friends with Armando Spadini, Oppo, and in particular, Emanuele Cavalli, with whom he shared a studio. He travelled to Paris in 1929 and, on his return to Rome, became associated with a loose group of painters, including Corrado Cagli and Cavalli in the orbit of the critic, Waldemar George, which was known as the Scuola Romana. The subject matter of Capogrossi's pale fresco- like paintings paralleled the Magic Realism of the poet and theorist, Massimo Bontempelli (1878 -1960). In 1933 with Roberto Melli he signed the 'Manifesto del Primordialismo Plastico'.
In the late 1930s Capogrossi began to employ darker hues. He made his first prints in 1944, a set of 11 lithographs. These, the first significant lithographs to be printed by Roberto Bulla, were published jointly by Documento Editore and Galleria La Margherita in Rome. They were of female figures, some of which were indebted to Derain's 'Metamorphoses' of the late 1920s. After the war, Capogrossi gradually turned to abstraction. His first fully abstract works date from 1949. Towards the end of that year, Capogrossi started to use a language of signs, which he was to employ in his paintings and prints for the rest of his career. He arranged these signs in comb-like compositions against backgrounds of a single colour. Although apparently structured, their arrangement was intuitive, and hence Capogrossi was closer to the sensibility of Art Informel than to Geometric Abstraction. He was one of the founders in 1951 with Burri, Ettore Colla, and Mario Ballocco, of the Gruppo Origine, all Rome based artists who promoted abstract art as a counter to realism, arguing for a reductive simplicity. Capogrossi was also in touch with abstract artists in Milan, and exhibited in several group exhibitions devoted to Spazialismo.
He resumed printmaking in 1950, when he began to work with the Stamperia and Galleria del Cavallino in Venice, a partnership which was to last until 1966. These prints were mainly lithographs, but also included screenprints and a linocut. In 1960 Capogrossi made four woodcuts, which he printed in his own studio in Rome. He made his first etching with the Florentine workshop, Il Bisonte, in 1963 - 64, and began working with Valter Rossi's 2RC Studio in Rome in 1964, at first for etchings, but later principally for lithographs. The Galleria Marlborough in Rome joined 2RC to publish an album of five lithographs and a relief etching in 1968. Many of Capogrossi's 122 prints were published individually. His last portfolio was a set of 10 lithographs, printed and published by Erker Presse in Sankt Gallen in 1971. Many of his relief etchings were printed by Edizioni d'Arte Fratelli Pozzi in Turin. Capogrossi also worked with the printers Mourlot and Leblanc in Paris, Brano Horvat of the Galleria del Deposito, Grafica Romero, Multirevol, and the Swiss Atelier der Galerie Pro Arte Kasper in Morges among others.
- Bibliography
- Ulrike von Hase-Schmundt, 'C, das graphische Werk', c.1970
