Christo (American-Bulgarian, 1935–2020)
Christo became famous for his monumental collaborations with his wife and creative partner, Jeanne-Claude. The duo’s projects, such as The Gates (1979–2005) in New York’s Central Park and Wrapped Reichstag (1972–95) in Berlin, made spectacular interventions in public spaces. After Jeanne-Claude’s passing in 2009, Christo worked to complete the couple’s unrealized projects such as The London Mastaba, a 600-ton sculpture made from 7,000 painted oil barrels that floated on the city’s Serpentine Lake in 2018. In gallery spaces—including at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—Christo and Jeanne-Claude presented schematic drawings and models, which exhibited the imagination and technical mastery that undergirded their massive installations. At auction, these pieces have sold for six figures.
