About Us
Jon and Cathy Cone founded Cone Editions Press in 1980 as a collaborative printmaking studio featuring intaglio, photogravure, silkscreen, woodcut and relief print. Before leaving NYC for Vermont, they operated Cone Editions Gallery at 560 Broadway in Soho District which at the time was the premiere exhibition district in New York City. Cone Editions was the first digital printmaking studio in the world and has been responsible for most of the innovations that consumers and professionals use today such as pigment ink, light black inks, multi-black inks, etc.
Jon is a pioneer in inkjet printing technology, producing the first computer generated printmaking in 1984, formulating the first archival inkjet inks in 1993, and inventing multi-gradation monochromatic inkjet printing (Piezography®) two years later. He was awarded PDN/PIX Digital Innovator of the Year in 1998 and he has continuously pushed inkjet technology far above that of Canon, EPSON and HP.
Cathy has been an exhibiting painter and photographer since 1980 working with the concept of computers in a painter's studio. Cathy participated in the earliest fine art digital exhibitions including the 1994 DeCordova Museum exhibition "The Computer in the Studio" and the 1997 "The Painted Photograph" at the Real Gallery, NYC. She was commissioned to produce a permanent installation at the Beekman Hotel and its adjoining Tom Colicchio restaurant, The Temple Court.
Cathy directs Cone Editions Press including its workshops. Jon Cone is Master Printer and head of Research & Development, and together they collaborate with painters and photographers who come to work in person.
At the heart of the technology at Cone Editions is Piezography® a system of software and inks that print tens of thousands of more gray levels than can Canon, EPSON, and HP. These tens of thousands of gray levels produce higher acuity, longer tonal range, higher dynamic range, and better shadow & highlight detail. It does so significantly so that it is immediately noticeable in side by side comparisons. And the processes using Piezography are far more archival than what others using Canon, EPSON and HP can supply.
The studio uses this process to produce its 100% pure carbon prints, and to make digital negatives for platinum printing, and for printing the matrices for its photogravure plates. Consistently, Cone Editions Press is able to produce higher standards with its own technology.
For example, instead of printing highlights with less ink than it prints shadows, which is how traditional printers operate, Cone Editions prints its highlights with as much ink as its shadows. In fact, highlights are printed with 3 or 4 different inks in varying densities. This is why our highlights are filled with so much detail. At the other end we print our shadow details using 3-4 different shades of carbon black ink instead of just one as would OEM systems. In all, we use ten different shades of carbon black ink in comparison to the 2 or 3 shades of black ink that OEM printers use. And we control all of this with the software we produce ourselves. We formulate the inks, we write the software, and have invented all of this methodology ourselves.
Some of the projects we are proud to have produced with Cone invented technologies include Richard Avedon's last living portfolio "In Memory of the Late Mr & Mrs Comfort", Gordon Parks "Half Past Autumn", David Bowie's "Cork Street Gallery Exhibition", Gregory Colbert's "Ashes and Snow Nomadic Museum Exhibitions", James Nachtwey's "War's Tragic Effects Exhibition at the Currier Museum".
Cone Editions Press operates a collaborative studio and teaches workshops, but is using this online store to offer a more inexpensive approach to their services which do not require consultations and interaction and proofing and adjustments or on-site participation with our processes. All of which, by the way, we invite you to contact us at Cone Editions if you would like to participate in a workshop or to work directly with us in a more collaborative manner.