About Manneken Press

M anneken Press is a fine art publisher producing original, limited edition and unique prints, portfolios and artist’s books by significant contemporary artists. Manneken Press is owned and operated by Jonathan Higgins and Sarah Smelser. Since our founding in 2000 we have worked with a range of American and international artists to create a unique body of contemporary prints that we offer to the public through exhibitions, art fairs and online platforms. Manneken Press currently represents more than 30 artists and our roster continues to grow each year. In addition to prints, Manneken Press has augmented our inventory to include drawings, sculpture and photography to better represent the full scope our our artist’s creative output. 

Artists come by invitation to create original works of art in intaglio, relief, lithography and monotype in our studio, located in Bloomington, IL USA. 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.

All works of art shown on this website are for sale. For purchasing information, click here. Inquiries from collectors, curators, consultants, connoisseurs and the merely curious are welcome.

Visitors are welcome by appointment to view prints in our small 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.

Manneken Press
1106 Bell Street
Bloomington, IL  61701
USA
phone/fax: 309-829-7443
[email protected]

Jonathan Higgins is Manneken’s Master Printer. He has worked with many artists, including Robert Indiana, Alison Saar, Komar and Melamid, Peter Saul, David Salle, Mel Chin, Brodsky and Utkin, and Jose Bedia at printmaking ateliers in the United States and Europe. Higgins was first introduced to printmaking during his undergraduate years at Humboldt State University and subsequently began his career printing editions for several San Francisco Bay Area artists. Moving to New York City in 1989 to pursue a Master’s degree at NYU, Higgins picked up freelance printing work at various studios around the city, including The Printmaking Workshop. From 1992 – 1996 Higgins was employed by Vinalhaven Press, a print publishing workshop in Maine that operated during the summers, where he began collaborating with artists on platemaking. In 1995 Higgins co-founded Galamander Press in New York City which he operated with several partners until 2000. He also worked at the Brodsky Center For Innovative Editions, New Brunswick, NJ, ARTica Studio, Bilbao, Spain and the Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, Belgium before launching 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.