Known as the painter of Lower Manhattan’s ever-changing skyline, Todd Stone (b. 1951) is an American master of watercolor & prolific oil painter; his most renowned work over the last two decades examines both the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, and the ongoing resilience, recovery, and rebound of Lower Manhattan. Todd’s portfolio boasts an elegiac culmination of 30 years of painting the Downtown Skyline from his studio window in TriBeCa. 

Exhibiting throughout the United States & Europe since 1974, Todd’s artistry is as deep as it is both comprehensive & visually pleasing. The interplay of medium and color beautifully convey a harmonious dance of light, shadow, and sense of reflection that bring the twinkling vibrance of his subjects to life. 

Looking back, Stone says his artistic interests began with abstractionism, feeling inspired by it’s movement from order to chaos. Todd’s early abstract paintings conceptualize the cyclical patterns of growth, destruction, and rebirth that govern life’s processes - life to death, season to season. “Once I engaged in trying to draw what was before me, the process didn’t stop.” The same can be said about his profound mastery of the medium.

As his physical surroundings changed, so did the focus and direction of his work; moving from making abstractions in the studio to then embracing the traditional genre of landscape painting. As he welcomed the surrounding world, painting what he saw outside his studio in the natural settings before him, his art became less rigid, more free and more spontaneous.

Seeking inspiration during the winter months, Stone simultaneously developed a studio practice offering an intimate glimpse to his private world: through still life, studio scenes and self-portraiture, Todd captures both the metaphorical and literal artist’s gaze when bearing upon itself. 

Stone says, "My artwork has always been about joy. As a landscape painter, I try to open myself up to the unique beauty of a moment in a place…My domestic interior, bath and window view, became a microcosm of the play of light, water, and energy of the larger world.”

By 2000 Stone further expanded his artistic practice to include a myriad of studio scenes, landscape, cityscapes, & streetscapes often featuring the New York City Skyline and iconic Twin Towers, visible from his lower Manhattan studio window. 

Routinely painting the skyline in direct view from the vantage point of his studio’s roof, the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers became an accustomed character in Stone’s work throughout the years. But never had Todd imagined the view of downtown Manhattan with which he had become so familiar, would eventually become public discourse. 

Of his series entitled Witness, Todd states “Witness brings to bear my 30 year painting practice to what I saw from my home on September 11. It is conceived as an elegy to the lives lost and altered that day…When the second tower fell, my studio was flooded with light. I lived in the shadow of the towers for 22 years. These paintings were made in the shadow of that new light, the paint mixed with the dust that invaded my studio, as the fires still burned, in memory."

Overwhelmingly inspired by the conceptual processes of a community both coming together and overcoming tragedy, Todd’s philosophy is ingrained in steadfast evolution. The collapse of the towers served as a hauntingly beautiful juxtaposition - the shadow now cast upon our country in the wake of communal catastrophe left Todd feeling riddled with darkness even amongst the light that now ushered into his studio. 

As the city rebuilt, the subsequent years found Todd continuing his painting practice with a thinly veiled sense of responsibility to those affected by the tragedy, including to the neighborhood itself. A resident artist of Silverstein Properties at the World Trade Center since 2009, Stone worked from raw, sky studio spaces in towers of 7 WTC, 4 WTC, and currently 3 WTC, furthering his fervor to paint towards a greater purpose when creating his latest body of work.  

The most recent cityspace paintings depict the panoramic views from the 71st floor of 3WTC overlooking the Memorial, site re-construction, and city beyond, fostering a dialogue about how the external face of a city’s skyline reflects its peoples shared inner life, bringing with them a silent message of having prevailed, not only for Lower Manhattan, but to all inhabitants of New York City.  

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Todd Stone was educated in the Scarsdale New York system & received a BFA from the University of New Mexico (1974), where he majored in lithography, drawing and sculpture. He is the Founder and President of the Gallows Run Watershed Association in Bucks County, PA and chair of the Bridgeton Nockamixon Tinicum Groundwater Management Committee.

Stone has been a recipient of national recognition and painting awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Painting, State Museum of Pennsylvania Painting Award, Abbey Fund Fellowship from the National Academy of the Arts and grants from the Puffin Foundation and Kittredge Fund. He has been an independent fiscally Sponsored Artist with the New York Foundation of the Arts. 

Stone's work has been exhibited at the National September 11 Museum, Art Basel, the Museum of the City of New York, Cologne Art Fair, Neiman Gallery of Columbia University, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Florence Biennale, Williams College Art Museum, The New-York Historical Society, and the Art in Embassies Program, and is in the collections of Bankers Trust Corporation, First Manhattan, Citicorp, Lufthansa, Michener Art Museum, Robert Mondavi Winery, National 911 Museum, Readers Digest Inc., and WarnerMedia.