Presented by Anita Shapolsky Gallery

William Manning was born in Lewiston, Maine and lived in Maine all his life. Manning started painting in 1954 and later taught at the Portland School of Art (now Maine College of Art) for 10 years. He was then fired for what was considered a radical philosophy in teaching and painting. Manning was the first native Maine painter to paint abstract work (Marsden Hartley did a few abstract paintings around 1917), and was also the first to receive a National Endowment Grant and a MacDowell Fellowship. He co-founded Concept, a School of Visual Studies. Many of the students he taught became recognized artists in New York and elsewhere. He then became involved in the New York art scene for over 25 years, meeting and showing with many of the first and second generation abstract expressionists.