Manuel Gregorio Acosta

[6] 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.

[7] 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 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.

[10] In 2018, Acosta's work was included in the El Paso Museum of Art group exhibition, Early West Texas: Waypoint and Home, alongside artists José Cisneros and Tom Lea.