Manuel Gregorio Acosta

• Name — Manuel Gregorio Acosta • Born — 9 May 1921 • Birthplace — Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico • Died — 25 October 1989 • Place of death — El Paso, Texas, U.S. • Education — University of Texas at El Paso, Chouinard Art Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara • Known for — Painting, Sculptor, Illustrator, Muralist • Movement — Chicano Movement • Illustration — Illustration of labor leader César Chávez by Acosta, was on the cover of Time, published July 4, 1969

Manuel Gregorio Acosta was born on May 9, 1921 into a family in Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico. His father, Ramón P. Acosta, had fought in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa, and the Mexican Revolution was a recurring theme in Manuel's paintings. The family moved to El Paso, Texas when Manuel was a child. Acosta attended Bowie High School, where he started studying art. He always seemed interested in drawings, so as practice he would mock pictures of newspapers and later started drawing pin up girls. Manuel Acosta served in the United States Air Force during World War II, during which time he continued practicing his artwork, and became an American citizen shortly after discharge. In the fall of 1946 he attended the College of Mines and Metallurgy (now the University of Texas at El Paso), where he studied drawing and sculpture under sculptor Urbici Soler. He started to sketch people and views from El Paso's barrios in a realistic style. In 1952 he became an apprentice to painter Peter Hurd on a mural project about pioneer Texas located at the West Texas Museum in Lubbock. He spent a year at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and six months at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before establishing his home and studio in El Paso, Texas.

During the height of the worker's rights movement, Acosta's portrait of Cesar Chavez was reproduced on the cover of Time magazine on July 4, 1969. The original portrait is now part of the National Portrait Gallery's permanent collection. Acosta moved his studio home in order to make way for a new highway, and built a new adobe building at 366 Buena Vista.

• El Paso Museum of Art • Museum of Texas Tech University • National Portrait Gallery • New Mexico Museum of Art

• Braddy, Haldeen, The Paradox of Pancho Villa, Illustrated by Manuel Acosta, El Paso, Texas Western Press, 1978. • Grauer, Paula L. & Michael R. Grauer, Dictionary of Texas Artists, 1800-1945, College Station, Texas, Texas A & M University, 1999. • Thompson, William R., El Paso Museum of Art, in American Art Review