Manuel Bennett, an American painter, sculptor, designer, and teacher was born in Philadelphia in 1921, and has lived in Mexico since 1951.His training began under the tutelage of his father, a master carpenter, and continued at the High School for Music and Art in New York and under sculptor Jacob Paul Daniels. His art career was interrupted by service in the US Army from 1942-46 as a cartographer. In 1951, the Montgomery GI Bill enabled Bennett to return to his art training at the world famous La Esmeralda 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.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 books for school children in the Mexican public school system. He currently resides in Orange County, CA.