Gruppo Origine (origin group) was an Italian group of artists formed in 1950 with its first and last formal exhibition in 1951.The founding members felt that their abstract art marked a clear return to simple form and colour. In short, Gruppo Origine wanted to focus on the fundamentals of what abstract, non-figurative, art was and ought to convey.
In their manifesto, the artists renounced deliberate three-dimensional forms and argued for a reduction in colour to its flattest, simplest, expressive function. For them, at least, abstract art should evoke pure emotion.
The group was founded in Rome by Mario Ballocco, Alberto Burri, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Ettore Colla who all decided to disband the group after their group exhibition.
However short-lived, the group deserves some mention because the participating artist were on to something very important. Their approach to abstraction played a part in the 1940s and 1950s art revolution. For instance, think of Gruppo Origine as a distant cousin to Lyrical Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, Spatialism, and Zero art.
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