Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific environmental installations, often large landmarks and landscape elements wrapped in fabric, including the Wrapped Reichstag, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Running Fence in California, and The Gates in New York City's Central Park.

Born in Bulgaria and Morocco, respectively, the pair met and married in Paris in the late 1950s.

Originally working under Christo's name, they later credited their installations to both "Christo and Jeanne-Claude".

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in October 1958 when he was commissioned to paint a portrait of her mother, Précilda de Guillebon.

In the mid-1960s, they also created Air Packages, inflated and wrapped research balloons.

Their first show, in Cologne, 1961, showcased the three types of artworks for which they would be known: wrapped items, oil barrels, and ephemeral, large-scale works.

Near Christo's first solo show in Paris, in 1962, the pair blocked an alley with 240 barrels for several hours in a piece called Iron Curtain, a poetic reply to the Berlin Wall.

They developed consistent, longtime terms of their collaboration.

They together imagined projects, for which Christo would create sketches and preparatory works that were later sold to fund the resulting installation.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude hired assistants to do the work of wrapping the object at hand.

They originally worked under the name "Christo" to simplify dealings and their brand, given the difficulties of establishing an artist's reputation and the prejudices against female artists, but they would later retroactively credit their large-scale outdoor works to both "Christo and Jeanne-Claude".

They eventually flew in separate planes such that, in case one crashed, the other could continue their work.

The couple relocated to New York City, the new art world capital, in 1964.

Christo began to make Store Fronts, wooden facades made to resemble shop windows, which he continued for four years.

His largest piece was shown in the 1968 Documenta 4.

In 1969, at the invitation of the museum director Jan van der Marck they wrapped the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art while it remained open.

It was panned by the public and ordered to be undone by the fire department, which went unenforced.

With the help of Australian collector John Kaldor, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and 100 volunteers wrapped the coast of Sydney's Little Bay as Wrapped Coast, the first piece for Kaldor Public Art Projects.

Within a year of Wrapped Coast, Christo began work on Valley Curtain: an orange curtain of fabric to be hung across the mountainous Colorado State Highway 325.

They simultaneously worked on Wrapped Walk Ways (Tokyo and Holland) and Wrapped Island (South Pacific), neither of which came to fruition.

The artists formed a corporation to benefit from tax and other liabilities, a form they used for later projects.

Following a failed attempt to mount the curtain in late 1971, a new engineer and builder-contractor raised the fabric in August 1972.

The work only stood for 28 hours before the wind again destroyed the fabric.

This work, their most expensive to date and first to involve construction workers, was captured in a documentary by David and Albert Maysles.

Inspired by a snow fence, in 1972, Christo and Jeanne-Claude began preparations for Running Fence: a 24.5-mile fence of white nylon, supported by steel posts and steel cables, running through the California landscape and into the ocean.

In exchange for temporary use of ranch land, the artists agreed to offer payment and use of the deconstructed building materials.

Others challenged its construction in 18 public hearings and three state court sessions.

Christo's Valley Curtain was nominated for Best Documentary Short in the 1974 Academy Awards.

The Maysles would film many of the artists' later projects.

The fence began construction in April 1976 and the project culminated in a two-week display in September, after which it was deconstructed.

Their 1978 Wrapped Walk Ways covered paths within Kansas City, Missouri's Loose Park in 12,540 square meters (135,000 square feet) of saffron-colored nylon fabric covering 4.4 kilometers (2.7 miles) of the park's formal garden walkways and jogging paths.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude planned a project based on Jeanne-Claude's idea to surround eleven islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with 603850 m2 of pink polypropylene floating fabric.

Surrounded Islands was completed on May 7, 1983, with the aid of 430 workers and could be admired for two weeks.

The workers were outfitted with pink long sleeve shirts with pale blue text written on the back reading “Christo Surrounded Islands”, and then in acknowledging the garment's designer, "designed and produced by Willi Smith".

Jeanne-Claude became an American citizen in March 1984.

The couple received permission to wrap the Pont Neuf, a bridge in Paris, in August 1985.

Until his own death in 2020, Christo continued to plan and execute projects after Jeanne-Claude's death in 2009.

Their work was typically large, visually impressive, and controversial, often taking years and sometimes decades of careful preparation – including technical solutions, political negotiation, permitting and environmental approval, hearings and public persuasion.

The pair refused grants, scholarships, donations or public money, instead financing the work via the sale of their own artwork.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude described the myriad elements that brought the projects to fruition as integral to the artwork itself, and said their projects contained no deeper meaning than their immediate aesthetic impact; their purpose being simply for joy, beauty, and new ways of seeing the familiar.