Gabrovo, 1935 – New York, 2020

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff was born in 1935 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. From 1952 to 1956, he studied at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia.
To escape the communist regime, he went to Prague and Vienna, where he attended a semester at the Academy of Fine Arts, before moving to Geneva and then Paris in 1958. There he met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (born on the same day as Christo in Casablanca, Morocco), his wife and partner in the creation of environmental artworks. In 1960, their son Cyril was born, and in 1964 they moved to New York.

Inspired by Nouveau Réalisme, Christo’s early works were assemblages of found objects or objects wrapped in resin-soaked canvas or polyethylene, simultaneously revealing and concealing the identity of the objects.

His collaboration with Jeanne-Claude led Christo to his first environmental art projects, covering public buildings. From the 1970s onwards, his projects became increasingly complex and monumental, involving historical and iconic monuments or the installation of long sheets in natural settings.

Among his most famous projects are ‘Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972–76,’ featuring 39 kilometres of 5.5-metre-high nylon panels stretching across the hills of northern California to the Pacific Ocean; ‘The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Paris, 1975-85’, when he wrapped the oldest bridge in Paris in fabric; and ‘The Gates, Central Park, New York City, 1979-2005’, with 7,503 saffron-coloured fabric panels.

After Christo’s death in New York in 2020 and in accordance with his wishes, “L’Arc de Triomphe Wrapped, Paris, 1961-2021” was posthumously realised in Paris.