About the artist

 Manuel Bennett, an American painter, sculptor, designer, and teacher was born in Philadelphia in 1921, and  lived and worked in Mexico from 1951 to 2011.

His training began under the tutelage of his father, a master carpenter, and continued at the High School of Music and Art in New York and under sculptor Jacob Paul Daniels.  His art career was punctuated by service in the US Army from 1942-46 in reconnaissance, mapmaking and cartography. In this role he went in before the troops to prepare maps for their deployment. He later leveraged this experience in his development of innovative art styles and techniques.

In 1951, he returned to his art training at the world famous La Esmeralda National School of Painting and Sculpture in Mexico City under such luminaries as the great Mexican muralists Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, landscapist Dr. Atl, and sculptor Francisco Zuñiga.

Bennett became a specialist in graphic arts and multiple print media, including silk screen, engraving, offset lithography and others. He founded and led several printing companies and other companies in the graphic arts field.

His long and varied career has included the invention of the pholage and contour sculpture techniques, the publication (with archaeologist Dr. Alfonso Caso) of the Bodley Codex Mixtec manuscripts, and thousands of sculptures, paintings, serigraphs, lithographs, and drawings. 

In recent years, Bennett has devoted himself to humanitarian causes through his art including donating time and work to the cities of Encinitas, CA, El Paso, TX, and Hondo and Hiroshima, Japan to symbolize international peace, to the American Cancer Society, UNICEF, and to the American Heart Association as an award to recognize those who have dedicated themselves to cardiac health in the Latino community (the inaugural winner of which was Actress Eva Longoria).  His work has also been published in a series of colorful and engaging books for school children.

He passed away in 2022.