Bulgarian
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff
b. 1935, Gabrovo, Bulgaria —
d. May 31, 2020, New York, New York

French
Jeanne-Claude Marie Denat
b. 1935, in Casablanca, France —
d. November 18, 2009, New York, New York

Christo and Jeanne-Claude worked together and were based in New York, New York

Christo was a sculptor best known for his unique wrapped works, which span from small-scale wrapped books to entire buildings and sites in nature, all encased in fabric. He met his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude Guillebon in Paris, and the two would collaborate on future outdoor and public works; Jeanne-Claude also managed the financial and organizational aspects of many of the large-scale installations.

Christo first began wrapping small objects, such as cans, books, and furniture, in the early 1960s, and then expanded his production to include crates, cars, and bicycles. In 1964 he and Jeanne-Claude moved to New York, where they worked on monumental outdoor and environmental sculptures, including a wrapped fountain in Italy, the swathing of the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland in fabric, the creation of the fabric Running Fence down the California coast, and the wrapping of a mile of the Australian coastline in Wrapped Coast.

Generating both positive and negative criticism for their sculptural installations, Christo and Jeanne-Claude expanded their projects to include the wrapping of the Pont-Neuf bridge in Paris, and the placing of a line of umbrellas — hundreds of miles long — along the Pacific ocean coasts of both Japan and the United States. Another powerfully meaningful piece consisted of Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapping the Reichstag in Germany, symbolic of the healing of old wounds between the previously divided State. In 2005 they constructed The Gates for Central Park in New York City. In 2016 Christo has continued, realizing a 3-kilometer-long walkway created in Italy known as The Floating Piers that extended across the water of Lake Iseo. The golden-colored fabric covered piers were 16 meters wide and approximately 35 centimeters high with sloping sides. The fabric continued along 2.5 kilometers of pedestrian streets in Sulzano and Peschiera Maraglio. The entire project was walkable.

Most of Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s sculptural installations require millions of dollars and hundreds of assistants to create, complex bureaucratic negotiations and community involvement and are funded entirely by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Christo has created many collages and works on paper in preparation for each sculpture that are sold to assist in accomplishing the project. These schematic drawings of the duo’s work exhibit the artist’s technical mastery and undergird their massive installations, connecting the big ideas to their inception.

christojeanneclaude.net