Grupo Ruptura

Grupo Ruptura was an association of Brazilian abstract artists formed in São Paulo in the early 1950s with the aim of making a decisive break with the dominant naturalistic and figurative approach to painting in the country. The group was founded in 1952, and its positions were set out in a manifesto issued during an exhibition of the same name at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo. Its founders included Waldemar Cordeiro, Luís Sacilotto, Geraldo de Barros, Lothar Charoux, Anatol Wladyslaw and Kazmer Fejer. The members of Grupo Ruptura proclaimed the need for a new, rational and scientific art based on the principles of Concrete art: pure geometric form, clear composition and the rejection of any representation, symbolism or illusionism. The group's theoretical leader was Waldemar Cordeiro, who argued for art as an objective, socially significant activity. Grupo Ruptura became the centre of Brazilian Concretism in São Paulo, while a parallel focus of the movement developed in Rio de Janeiro, and it substantially influenced the later development of abstract and constructive art in Brazil.