People

Professor Joe Mannino retired in 2021 after 35 years in the School of Art. Whether students concentrated in ceramics, or simply wanted to add ceramic components to their pieces, Joe shared with them his love of working with clay, with its malleability, its weight, and its sensuous and solid forms.  His practice references elements of architecture and the colossus, and their relationship to the order, values, politics and ambitions of society. While primarily a ceramic sculptor, Joe has also created works in metal, wood, and photography. 

A native of Chicago, Joe received his BA at Knox College and his MFA at Southern Illinois University.  He arrived at CMU in 1986, after teaching appointments at the University of California, Davis; Ohio State University; California College of the Arts; and Sweet Briar College. His work appears in the permanent collections of, among others, the Smith Museum of Art, Auburn University; the Washington State Art Commission; the City of Sacramento, CA; and the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. After he joined the School of Art, Joe helped to develop the Art in Context program, which evolved into Contextual Practice. He taught a collaborative course with Larry Cartwright in the Civil Engineering Department, in which the students designed and built the stairs going down to Doherty Hall from the Cut. In 2006, Joe taught at the Auckland Institute of Technology, in Auckland, NZ. 

Joe was Associate Head of the School of Art from 2002-06, and was the point person for the 2001-04 Doherty Hall renovation. In 1996, he was commissioned to create tiles for the Cohon University Center, above the entrance arches facing the Cut. Joe cast the hands of members of the Carnegie Mellon community and played off classical images such as Michelangelo’s Adam and Van Eyck’s Marriage of Arnolfini. In 2013, Joe was awarded the College of Fine Arts’ Henry Hornbostel Award for Excellence in Teaching.