About Lorenzo Cassa (Manuel)

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Born in Phoenix Arizona in 1955 to Chester and Geneva Cassa Manuel, was raised on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. He is a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, of the Tsete’ehe' sdjiné (Dark Rocks Extending Out People) clan. The clan (Read: Don't Let the Sun Step Over You, by Eva Tulene Watt) originated from one of the two main Apache groupings situated in the Southwestern United States. This group of Apache included the Aravaipas, Pinalenos, Coyoteros, White Mountain, Tonto Apaches, and other local bands. These groups are located on what is now the San Carlos and Fort Apache Indian Reservations in east central Arizona and the smaller Tonto Apache Indian Reservation near Payson Arizona.

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His art education includes studies in Junior High, High School and College. In 1976, he enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe New Mexico and received an Associate of Fine Arts Degree in 1978. He continued studies in two-dimensional design at the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta Georgia. He attended courses in Wildlife and Business Management at the Gila Pueblo College and the University of Phoenix in Arizona.

Lorenzo's work has been displayed in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. The analytical evaluation for his website reveals the National & International exposure of his artwork in 30 States and 67 countries. 

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In 2012, of the several hundred Arizona artists contending, 21 Artists works were chosen by the Arizona Commission on the Arts & the Arizona Art Alliance to commemorate the 2012 Arizona Centennial celebration. The only Native American artist among those chosen, Lorenzo’s painting “Apacheland” was on display for a year at the House of Representatives in Phoenix, Arizona.​ ​

Lorenzo was awarded the 2019 Southwest Art Magazine Artistic Excellence Competition 100 runners up Award, the 2020 Phippen Museum 46th Annual Western Art Show Sale’s Best in Show & First Place in Oils and the 2021 Heard Museum Guild 67th Annual Indian Market & Fair's 1st Place Award.

​The highlight of his artistic career to date has been to have a couple of his pieces to hang in the same exhibition alongside the masterpieces of renowned Western artists George Phippen, Ray Swanson, Charles M Russell, Frederick Remington, Olaf Weighorst, and Howard Terpning.

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"My encompassing survey of the art world began when I enrolled at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. To be honest, although I was not the resilient student in the Art History classes, the slide presentations of art through time is probably the most overwhelming element of influence contributed to broadening my perspective of realism.

Years ago I recognized that while realism can never be attributed to any one artist but it is one channel of many techniques used for depicting an expression through art, there is the possibility of emphasizing a unique expression in realism that is uncompromisingly genuine when focusing on historical content. You become the storyteller, the advocate, the security and production director of that specific scene of a particular event in time. It could be the argument of every art piece of every style in two dimensional designs since the discovery of the first cave paintings. But to catch the inspiration and transfer it to a realistic scene for the first time in the history of mankind, and induce the viewer to wander into an environment inhabited by the original occupiers from a western era gone by, I feel is justifiably a focal point the artist can claim as the honored repository. The artist is merely a channel for the Creator: to elevate the spirits of the disheartened!" Lorenzo Cassa

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“I have always surmised the vibrant sunrise and sunset tones as representational colors of captivated moments of solemn memories. There is no right or wrong in those masterpieces.  Maybe it has to do with the chemical elements of the human body corresponding with that of the earth’s, since we are one and the same, just created for a different purpose."   Lorenzo Cassa

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