Celebrating Thornwillow’s 40th Anniversary.
In 1985 Thornwillow Press was founded by Luke Ives Pontifell who spent his summer vacations from Harvard College printing and hand-binding books. What started as a labor of love has grown into one of the leading fine press printers and publishers in the world, consolidating centuries of craft and technique under one roof in Newburgh, New York.
Since its founding, the Press has published over 150 editions. We have been proud to publish original work and fine press publications by some of the world’s leading thinkers and artists including journalists Walter Cronkite and William L. Shirer, writers John Updike, Anthony Doerr, Toni Morrison, and Haruki Murakami, and poets James Merrill and Louise Glück. Thornwillow’s work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, and The White House.
In 2015, the Thornwillow Institute was founded to promote and perpetuate the art of craftsmanship in all its forms, especially related to the written word. We believe that how we communicate and preserve ideas matters. Objects you can touch, keep, and pass on are central to the identity of our culture. These objects become the legacy of our society. They memorialize our values, triumphs, challenges, and dreams.
Central to the work of the Thornwillow Institute is the ongoing development of the Thornwillow Makers Village in Newburgh, NY. The renovation and restoration of the historic structures that make up our campus allows us to house our people and our crafts, and to revive our corner of Newburgh to the beauty and vitality of its early days. Thornwillow unites a local and global community of book makers and book readers and the Maker’s Village is the nerve center of the entire enterprise, the base from which we can advance our mission of teaching and perpetuating the arts and crafts of the written word.