Leo Manso

Leo Manso (April 15, 1914 – February 5, 1993) was an abstract expressionist painter and collage artist known for his book illustrations and innovative modernist paintings.

Early life Manso was born Leo Joseph Mansowitz in New York City. He studied at the National Academy of Design, the Educational Alliance, and the New School for Social Research. He studied art history as well as painting.

Career Manso lived in New York City and spent summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He helped to develop Provincetown as a major American art colony in the 1940s. He was part of the "Forum 49" exhibition there with Hans Hofmann and Jackson Pollock, and co-founded Gallery 256. In 1958, with Victor Candell, he established the Provincetown Workshop, a summer school that attracted students from all around the world. It closed in 1976. He later switched to acrylics as a medium for collage using many other materials (paper, metal, wood) which he would sometimes soak in acrylics as he applied them to his canvases. Along with other illustrators, he founded the Book Jacket Designers Guild to support professional standards in paperback book covers. He also taught at Columbia University and New York University. He was artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College in 1985.