José Manuel Acosta y Bello was a Cuban painter, photographer, cartoonist, sculptor, and artist.

By the age of 35, he had submitted at least 35 drawings to Conrado Massaguer to be reviewed and printed in Social alongside his brother's work.

[4] Acosta was a great personal friend of José Zacarías Tallet, and also illustrated many of his poems.

The magazine Social wrote of Acosta, that he had:"a quick mind in the conception and execution of ideas, an absolute command of the technique of his profession, which qualifies him for the highest endeavors.

"[1]The writer and photographer Nelson Ramírez de Arellano of the Cuban magazine Revolución y Cultura, a Cuban state-sponsored magazine dedicated to glorifying the Cuban Revolution, writes of Acosta: "...the pioneering work of José Manuel Acosta stands for its own right as a culminating point and vortex generator of the entire avant-garde [of Cuba], a man with a singular talent... his understanding of the conventional limits of photography and his ability to break them... although his career as a photographer was relatively short, if was very fruitful, and in all his work we can see the presence of a photographer of the constructivist avant-garde on par with its greatest examples.