About Manneken Press

M anneken Press publishes and exhibits original, limited edition and unique prints, portfolios, artist’s books and drawings by significant contemporary artists. The press was founded in 2000 and is owned and operated by Jonathan Higgins and Sarah Smelser. Invited artists come to our studio in Bloomington, Illinois to create original works of art in intaglio, relief, lithography and monotype. The prints are made by the artists working in close collaboration with master printer Jonathan Higgins, and are hand-printed on our Takach etching press. We are committed to traditional, time tested techniques and use only the finest papers and inks to produce our prints.  Manneken Press has exhibited these works at fine art fairs in Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, Boston, Baltimore, Houston and New York City, and in many galleries and museums.

Manneken Press has been the subject of several survey exhibitions: Manneken Press at Five Years at Illinois Wesleyan University in 2005; Full Circle: Prints from Manneken Press travelled to venues in California, Texas and Louisiana in 2007; the Peoria Contemporary Art Center mounted the exhibition Artists of Manneken Press in 2011; and Recent Prints and Projects from Manneken Press, Wakely Gallery, Bloomington, IL in 2017. Reviews of Manneken Press prints have appeared in such publications as Art In Print, Art In America, ARTnews, and Art On Paper.

We participate in several fine art fairs each year. Visitors are welcome by appointment to view prints in our showroom and tour the studio, which is located on the 2nd floor of an historic Art Moderne style building, a former Coca Cola bottling plant built in 1938.

A ll the prints shown on the website are for sale. Please contact us at [email protected] or 309-829-7443 for pricing and availability, or if you require any additional information about the artworks, artists or techniques used. For purchases, we accept checks, cash, PayPal and all major credit cards. Items may also be purchased directly on our Artsy site.

Prints are either shipped flat or in tubes. Prices do not include shipping, taxes and insurance.

The prints are sold unframed unless otherwise specified. We can assist you in identifying a quality framer for your purchase where possible.

All sales are final, and we cannot accept returns.

Jonathan Higgins is Manneken’s Master Printer. He has collaborated with many artists and worked at printmaking studios in the U.S. and Europe, including Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA; The Printmaking Workshop, New York, NY; The Brodsky Center (formerly Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper), New Brunswick, NJ; Vinalhaven Press, Vinalhaven, ME; ARTica Studio, Bilbao, Spain; and the Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium. Higgins co-founded Galamander Press, New York, NY in 1995 which he ran with several partners before starting Manneken Press in 2000. Higgins is also an artist and his work can be seen here. Read more about Jonathan here.

A ll images on this website are copyright protected and are jointly owned by Manneken Press and the artists.  Reproduction of any kind and for any purpose must be expressly approved by Manneken Press.