If you’ve purchased holiday stamps recently, you may be holding a little piece of art from Fort Thomas native and resident Gregory Manchess. The award-winning illustrator’s work can be found on book covers, in magazines, on advertisements, gracing the walls of museums and even on the big screen. His paintings of festive snow globes are featured on the USPS 2023 holiday stamps.
Manchess paints in oil, usually on canvas or linen, and his painterly style is sought by publishers, advertisers, corporations and private collectors across the US and Europe. Currently, he is working on a series of illustrations of classic novels for two UK publishers.
He has done other stamps for the postal service, but you can also find his work in National Geographic, Atlantic Monthly and The Smithsonian. He’s painted portraits of several well-known individuals including Martin Luther King, all the Beatles, Tupac Shakur and Sally Ride. His work can be seen throughout the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library and in the Coen brothers film, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” His advertising work includes illustrations for Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Patrón Tequila.
When National Geographic wanted a series of paintings to tell the story of the discovery of a real pirate ship for a traveling exhibition, they asked Manchess to document the adventure.
Telling stories
Storytelling is at the heart of Manchess’ work — that, and a passion for telling those stories through illustration. Whether it’s an advertisement, an article, a museum exhibit or a book, all have a tale to tell, which explains why Manchess has been able to work in so many different fields.
“I love books, and I love publishing. All that is wonderful to work with,” he said. “…For advertising jobs, I would try to bring more of a fine art feel to it. They would come to me for the painterly approach if they had an idea that fit that way…That would lead to some of the editorial work… and then the editorial work would lead back to the advertising work. So it was back and forth like that.”
Manchess’ career path also feels like a classic story. Things did not go smoothly at first. He faced obstacles and struggled along the way to his success.
Early hurdles
Right out of high school, he wanted to follow his dream of becoming a fine artist, to do traditional study of drawing and painting, he said. He applied to art schools with his portfolio, but was rejected by his top choices. At the time, many forms of more traditional work were considered to be outdated, and most schools were looking for artists whose vision was more conceptual.
Popular throughout the 1960s and ‘70s conceptual art emphasized the ideas or concepts behind the artist’s work and de-emphasized the more traditional technical aspects. Manchess was accepted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, but at first they would only take him on probation.
“They really did not encourage learning the figure. They didn’t encourage reproducing anything of reality. It was all conceptual-based. So I had struggled with that,” he said. “But I did it anyway. Because, you know, artists are contrary like that. And I took a lot of grief for it for four years of school. But I just followed my heart and my passion, and kept after it. And then I discovered that illustration was where they were doing all that…And so I found my home that way.”
Ups and downs
After art school, Manchess found a position at a studio in Waterloo, Iowa. While he learned a lot at that job, he said, the location was less than ideal for a young person interested in building a career in freelance illustration. He moved to Galena, Illinois, just three hours outside of Chicago and would go into the city in search of work, especially in the advertising industry.
Things went well for several years. He found an agent in Chicago and had lots of work, he said. Yet, still, something wasn’t quite right.
“I wasn’t doing what I really loved, which was oil painting. So I started to do samples for myself, for my portfolio.”
He headed to New York and landed an agent in the city, but things did not go smoothly. Again, he said, he faced rejections. He was told oil painting was “old style.” Yet, he continued to paint and send his work out. He entered the Society of Illustrators annual show, the top venue for illustration in the country, and was accepted the first year. Yet, after that, he said there was what felt like a 10-year dry spell.
Finding success
Tastes change, and things are never constant in the art world. Finally, interest from a New York agent and a feature on him and his work in Communication Arts magazine broke things wide open.
“That pretty much changed my entire illustration career,” he said “Now calls were coming in. People were interested in my painterly approach. And I just kept going with that. I started winning medals from the Society and other places.”
The work then became a steady flow. He reflected on that, sounding a bit amazed at how it all turned out.
“I developed a painterly style that I had been told in beginning years was dead and was not going to work. And I didn’t care, because I loved it. And I kept after it. And so now I’m known as the painterly guy. And that’s what I’ve built my career on,” he said.
To see more of his work, check out the Gregory Manchess website.