Bodil Manz was born in Copenhagen in 1943. After graduating from the School of Arts and Craft, Copenhagen in 1965 she went on to study at the Escuela de Disneño y Artesanias in Mexico and Berkeley University in California. She established a studio with her late husband, ceramist Richard Manz, in 1967 in Horve, where she continues to live and work today.

Manz has had solo exhibitions in Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdamn, London and New York and in 2008 was honoured with a major retrospective exhibition at the Kunstindustrimuseet in Copenhagen. Her work is represented in public collections worldwide including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musée de Sèvres, France and the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan. In 2007 she was awarded the Grand Prize at the 4th World Ceramic Biennale, Korea.