The award-winning painter, Gregory Manchess has worked as a freelance illustrator for forty-seven years on advertising campaigns, magazines, and book covers.
His work has appeared on covers and for feature stories of numerous magazines, such as National Geographic, Time, Atlantic Monthly, and The Smithsonian. Gregory’s excellent figure work has led to commissions for stamps by the US Postal Service, including the Mark Twain Stamp, the 1963 March On Washington Stamp, and the 2023 Christmas stamp series, Snow Globes.
With Manchess’ passion for history, the National Geographic Society sent him on expedition to record the exploits of explorer, David Thomson, and chose his work to illustrate the adventures of the first discovery of an actual pirate ship for the traveling exhibition, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of The Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship.
Widely awarded within the industry, Manchess exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in New York. His peers at the Society presented him with their highest honor, the coveted Hamilton King Award.
Gregory is included in Walt Reed’s edition of The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000. He lectures frequently at universities and colleges nationwide and gives workshops in painting at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and The Atelier in Minneapolis, MN.
Recently, the Coen Brothers chose to feature Greg's incredible work as part of the storytelling in their recent film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Manchess’ widescreen novel, Above the Timberline, was released by Simon & Schuster / Saga Press in October, 2017 to starred reviews. The book is written by Greg and fully illustrated with 124 oil paintings across 240 pages. The story is based on a painting of a mountain explorer and his polar bear pack, created for a 2-hour video examining Greg's painting process and technique. The book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
Thirty of the paintings were the subject of a large scale exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum. The story was then adapted to a stage play by Greg and performed by actors of the Forest Roberts Theater on the campus of Northern Michigan University. The production took fourteen national awards at the National American College Theater Awards, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
On September 26, 2024, Manchess was inducted in the NY Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.
