Known for his painterly figurative sculpture, Manuel Neri has remained devoted to representing the human form, despite the dominance of abstraction in the art world during the postwar years, when he started out. Born in 1930 in Sanger, California, near Fresno, Neri spent most of his childhood in Southern California. At San Francisco City College he developed an interest in ceramics while taking a course taught by Peter Voulkos, and it led him to enroll at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1950, where he studied under Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff.

Soon Neri found the medium of pottery and ceramics too confining. He began to experiment with plaster and various supports, beginning with random detritus from his studio, such as cardboard and wire. Taking the human form as a “blank canvas,” Neri from the late 1950s on devoted himself almost exclusively to his signature life-size plaster sculptures. He came to be recognized as a prominent member of the second-generation Bay Area Figurative movement, and to this day he remains active in the San Francisco art scene, while also maintaining a studio in Italy. Neri has held several teaching positions, including at his alma mater, the California School of Fine Arts, as well as the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Davis.