The ateliers belonged to a Praça da Sé building named Palacete Santa Helena.
By this time, some painters associations were created in São Paulo, like the Sociedade Pró-Arte Moderna (or "Pro-Modern Art Society", aka SPAM) or Clube dos Artistas Modernos (CAM, or "Modern Artists Club").
That prejudice was made clear in several criticisms that were directed to the Group's work, particularly when it started to cause a sensation, and to threaten positions already established.
Some Santa Helena artists had already studied art in Europe before arriving in Brazil; for instance Pennacchi, Rizzotti and Bonadei.
The Santa Helena Group's major achievement was to reveal some of the most important Brazilian visual artists of the 20th century.
In 1940, the "Exhibition of French Painters", that presented Cézanne, Picasso, Braque and Gris, among others, caused an enormous impact and several components of the group started to redirect his work, what made them more distant of the Grupo's themes or in their formal aspects.