About the works of art depicting "The Manhattan Skyline," panoramas of New York City

Image of The Chrysler Building's spire, a portion of the posters entitled 'The Manhattan Skyline' panoramas, depicting the New York skyline, also known as the Manhattan skyline.

The close-up above of the Chrysler Building’s art-deco spire shows the fine detail included in each panorama. Below shows the hundreds of rectangles and irregular shapes the artist drew on a computer to create the color image pictured above.

Image of the rectangles and polygons of The Chrysler Building, a portion of the posters entitled 'The Manhattan Skyline' panoramas, depicting the New York skyline, also known as the Manhattan skyline.

ne of the world’s most breathtaking sights is the New York City skyline, now captured as never before in two new panoramas called The Manhattan Skyline Portraits.
Computer image Although photographic in appearance, these images are actually illustrations drawn by artist John Wagner. Using a computer as a pen and paintbrush, he carefully crafted a faithful likeness of each building based largely on thousands of photographs he took from the air as well as at ground level.
Drawing the 6.5 miles of Manhattan pictured in both portraits took Wagner more than three years to complete. He began in May 1998 and finished two weeks after the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in September 2001. More than 1,000 buildings take center stage in each drawing. Another 2,500 less-visible structures serve as the skyline’s supporting cast, conveying the density of construction so characteristic of Manhattan.
World Trade Center image These twin towers shouldered their way to landmark status in the 1970s by their sheer bulk and height, inevitably becoming targets, first for mischief, and later for mayhem.

They also attracted the attention of countless photographers and artists, including Wagner whose commemorative panoramas show the skyline as he originally envisioned it, with the Trade Center towers intact. There are two portraits, or views, from which to choose. Both depict the southern half of Manhattan from 96th Street to the Battery.

An East River Portrait faithfully records the eastern side of the skyline as seen from Brooklyn and Queens across the East River.

A Hudson River Portrait shows the west side of the city, looking across the Hudson River from the New Jersey shoreline. Each portrait is sold separately.

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In order to fit the entire 12 feet of city depicted in each portrait on a single sheet of poster paper, the image is presented in two decks with a pause at 29th Street. Each panorama reads like a two-line sentence, left to right and top to bottom. The size of each print is 18.5 x 75 inches (47 x 190.5 cm). All buildings in the panoramas are drawn using the same scale, which means no structure is diminished in size because of its distance from you, the viewer. All skyscrapers stand tall in these group portraits, even those in the back row. How tall? The Empire State Building measures 5.75 inches tall (15 cm).

Image of the World Trade Center Tower 2, a portion of the posters entitled 'The Manhattan Skyline' panoramas, depicting the New York skyline, also known as the Manhattan skyline. Increase your knowledge of New York’s soaring skyscrapers with the Manhattan Skyline portraits. More than 500 structures are identified with informative labels in each panorama.
More than 500 buildings in each Manhattan Skyline portrait are identified. The stories of these buildings are told in these labels, such as the date completed, the street address and the architect. Labels for skyscrapers taller than 700 feet (213 m) also list the height in stories, feet and meters. In addition many labels include further information of historic interest.
Photograph of artist John Wagner, author of the posters entitled 'The Manhattan Skyline' panoramas, depicting the New York skyline, also known as the Manhattan skyline. Family trips to New York City from John Wagner’s boyhood home in West Reading, Pa., sparked the artist’s fascination with Manhattan and its ever-changing skyline. A 1973 graduate of Syracuse University, Wagner's art instruction included a semester in London, during which he immersed himself in the study of that city's magnificent architecture from the Victorian era. In 1976 Wagner began a career in journalism, moving to Denver to wield his artist's pen as an editorial cartoonist. A stint as a newsroom artist followed in Colorado Springs, where among other projects he drew a detailed aerial view of the Springs when the city was one year old and still very much a frontier town. Wagner and his wife Mary now reside in Santa Fe.

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