LaManna

Born in New Jersey in 1924. Upon leaving the Navy after World War II he studied watercolor painting with Charles Giles at Florida Southern College. He continued his formal art training in New York City at the Parsons School of Design, and the Art Students League where he studied under Frank Reilly. His first commissions included watercolors for General Electric, Seagram 7, and Raytheon. He held positions as art director for Collectors Publications, and Peterson Publishing Company, and his illustrations appeared as cover art for magazines including Sports Review, Screen Legends, Sound Stage, and Real Magazine. He also illustrated for Bantam Books and did motion picture illustrations for Warner Brothers. The artist was Professor of Drawing at Brandes Art Institute, and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.His works are represented in a number of public and private collections including paintings in the Jazz Museum, New Orleans, Florida Southern College, Grey Line Tours, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Patton, Mia Farrow, Casey Stengel, Margaret Whiting, and John Wayne. He is well known for his paintings which are captivating, dreamy suggestions of life and beauty of nature, painted with imagination, yet restrained and poetic in feeling.