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Chicago wall art divides into two products that share a subject. One is the illustrated souvenir: vintage travel posters, pop art, city map prints, Starry Night pastiches. The other is a photograph of the skyline. This collection is the photograph, and almost all of it is shot from the same place.
The poster kind is graphic. Flat color, bold type, a 1929 travel advertisement or a map of the neighborhoods, and it reads as memorabilia. People buy it because they lived there, went to school there, or left.
The photograph kind is a view. Real light, real weather, the lake in the foreground, and it reads as a landscape that happens to contain a city. People buy it for the wall rather than for the memory.
The test is simple. If you want the room to say Chicago, take the poster. If you want a picture that is good regardless of whether a visitor recognizes the skyline, take the photograph.
This is the fact that explains what the collection looks like. Chicago has no hill, and the skyline runs along the lakefront, so the only place to stand far enough back to see it whole is out on Lake Michigan looking west.
That single viewpoint produces almost every Chicago image you have seen: a wide horizontal band of towers, water across the bottom third, and open sky above. It is why Chicago work is so consistently panoramic, and why a square Chicago crop nearly always looks wrong.
The foreground is what varies. Chicago Skyline with Buckingham Fountain puts the fountain between you and the towers; the Navy Pier pieces use the wheel and the pier deck. Those foregrounds are doing real work, because a skyline alone is a flat stripe with nothing to lead the eye in.
Most of these are shot at dusk or after dark, and that is a choice rather than a habit.
In flat daylight a glass skyline is grey on grey and the towers merge into each other. At twilight the windows light up while the sky still holds color, so the buildings separate and the whole band reads as pattern. Chicago Skyline at Twilight is the clearest example of it.
The consequence for a room is the same one that applies to every night piece: a dark image with small bright points needs a well lit wall. Hung in a dim hallway it becomes a black rectangle with some sparkle in it.
Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center are the two the eye searches for, and their positions are how you tell one viewpoint from another.
Willis is the tall black one with the stepped setbacks, at the south end of the run. Hancock is the tapered one with the external X bracing, further north. A photograph taken from the south puts Willis nearest; one from the north leads with Hancock.
If a specific building matters to you, check which is dominant before buying. It is the single most common reason a Chicago piece disappoints someone who knows the city.
Buy wide. The subject is a horizontal band, and that is not a stylistic preference, it is the shape of the city from the water. A square crop throws away the run of towers that makes it Chicago rather than any downtown.
Above furniture, span about two thirds the width of what sits below and leave 6 to 8 inches of clear wall between them. On a bare wall, center the piece 57 to 60 inches from the floor. Full measurements are in the wall art size guide.
Every piece is offered as a single canvas or as a multi-panel set. A skyline splits unusually well, because the gaps between panels fall between towers and read as part of the rhythm. Keep a single landmark, a fountain or the pier as one canvas.
A living room or a study takes it best, particularly above a sofa or a media unit, where the width of the piece matches the width of the furniture. The wall behind a television is a natural fit for the same reason, and that has its own set of rules.
Avoid a dim room for the night pieces. Daylight and watercolor versions hold up far better under low ambient light, which is worth knowing if the only wall available is a dark one.
Start with Chicago Wall Art. For the same shape in other cities, Skyline Wall Art and the wider City Wall Art.
For the format the subject really wants, Panoramic Wall Art. For the after-dark versions specifically, City Lights Wall Art, and for the hour most of these were taken in, Sunset Wall Art.
For placing a wide piece in a living room, see living room wall art ideas.
Artwork with Chicago as its subject, covering two distinct products. Illustrated work includes vintage travel posters, pop art and city map prints, and reads as memorabilia. Photographic work shows the skyline from Lake Michigan and reads as a landscape. They suit different reasons for buying.
Because there is only one place to stand. Chicago has no hill and the skyline runs along the lakefront, so the whole city can only be seen from out on Lake Michigan looking west. That single viewpoint gives the wide horizontal band, water below and open sky above.
Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center. Willis is the tall black one with stepped setbacks at the south end; Hancock is tapered with external X bracing, further north. Which one dominates tells you whether the photograph was taken from the south or the north.
Wide rather than square. The city photographs as a horizontal band, so a square crop removes the run of towers that makes it recognizably Chicago. Above furniture, span about two thirds the width of what sits below, with 6 to 8 inches of clear wall between them.
The night and twilight pieces do not. A dark image with small bright windows needs a well lit wall, or it reads as a black rectangle with sparkle. Daylight and watercolor versions hold up much better under low ambient light.
