Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (Christo)

American, 1935 - 2020

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Under the name Christo, Christo Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon created site specific works across the globe together for forty-eight years, until Jeanne-Claude’s death in 2009. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on the same date, June 13, 1935; Christo in Bulgaria and Jeanne-Claude in Morocco. Christo’s father managed a factory and his mother worked as a secretary at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. Professors at the Academy recognized the young boy’s talent and he was able to enroll after his eighteenth birthday. In 1957 Christo fled to the West by stowing away on a medical supply train to Austria, which cost him his Bulgarian citizenship. Without a homeland, Christo continued on to Paris. Unable to pick up French easily, Christo’s early days in Paris were fraught with social isolation and financial difficulty. In order to support himself Christo painted portraits, which he later likened to artistic prostitution. By the time Christo arrived in Paris he had already begun working with wrapped objects and spaces. To separate the portraits from his “true art,” Christo signed the portraits using his family name; leaving “Christo” to signify only his environmental and conceptual works. In October 1958, Christo was commissioned to paint a portrait of Jeanne-Claude’s mother, Précilda de Guillebon. At the time of their introduction Jean-Claude was engaged to another man, and by the time her wedding day came, she was expecting her first child with Christo. After her wedding she left her husband to be with Christo. Christo and Jean-Claude welcomed their son Cyril on May 11, 1960. Jeanne-Claude’s family was shocked and outraged by what had happened and disapproved of Christo, leading the families to be estranged during Cyril’s childhood.

Jeanne-Claude was born in Casablanca, Morocco where her father, Major Léon Denat, was stationed. Her mother, Précilda, was married to her father at age seventeen and the couple divorced soon after her birth. Jeanne-Claude was sent to live with her father’s family during World War II while her mother fought in the French Resistance. Précilda later married General Jacques de Guillebon and the family moved to Bern, Switzerland. In 1952 Jeanne-Claude moved with her family to Tunisia, where she enrolled at the University of Tunis. After five years in Tunisia they moved back to Paris and a year later, Jeanne-Claude met Christo.

After the birth of their son, Jeanne-Claude began working as Christo’s artistic partner. Jeanne-Claude frequently described their collaboration as: “I became an artist out of love for Christo, if he had been a dentist, I would have become a dentist.” Since 1961, the couple successfully realized nineteen large-scale projects, including wrapping Pont Neuf in Paris with fabric; the simultaneous opening of umbrellas across the Japanese and California countryside; and erecting gates throughout Central Park in New York City. Due to the incredible scale of their projects and the manner in which their projects invade the cityscape, it takes years of planning and negotiating to acquire the permitting required to realize their visions. Over time the couple developed a strict policy regarding outside funding. Christo and Jeanne-Claude refused to be indebted or limited in anyway by receiving money from outside sources; choosing to personally fund their projects instead with the sales of Christo’s preparatory drawings. Due to the transient nature of their work, the couple documents their finalized projects in photography and film, working exclusively with photographer Wolfgang Volz and documentary film makers Albert and David Maysles.

In 2009, Jeanne-Claude died of a brain aneurysm while the couple where working on Over the River, a series of fabric panels over the Arkansas River in Colorado. From their first collaboration, they used only Christo’s name but in 1994 decided to retroactively credit their works to “Christo and Jeanne-Claude.”