CHRISTO — Visionary Creator of Large-Scale Environmental Works

Christo (Christo Vladimirov Javacheff, 1935–2020) was a Bulgarian-born American artist internationally celebrated for his monumental environmental installations, created in lifelong collaboration with his wife and artistic partner, Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009). Born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, Christo showed an early interest in theater and drawing, but his artistic education at the Sofia Academy of Fine Arts (1952–56) was restrained by the rigid expectations of the Communist regime. After further study in Prague, he famously escaped the Communist State in 1957 by hiding in a medical supply truck bound for Austria, an act of daring that marked the beginning of his life as an independent artist.

Following time in Vienna, Geneva, and Paris, Christo supported himself through portraiture before shifting toward wrapped objects, assemblage, and site-specific interventions. His move to New York in 1964 opened a new chapter of artistic ambition. Despite speaking little English, he quickly integrated into the avant-garde scene, exhibiting at renowned galleries such as Leo Castelli Gallery in New York and Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf. Together, Christo and Jeanne-Claude pioneered an entirely new form of public art: temporary, monumental interventions that transformed landscapes, architecture, and urban spaces on an unprecedented scale.

Their projects, characterized by wrapping, binding, veiling, or reshaping existing environments, were radical acts of re-seeing the world. Each work required years of planning, large interdisciplinary collaborations, extensive engineering, and complex political negotiations. The couple refused all public or corporate funding, instead financing each project themselves through the sale of preparatory drawings, collages, models, and editions to preserve total artistic freedom. The temporary nature of their installations made the experience itself the artwork: ephemeral, democratic, and unforgettable.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude created some of the most iconic public artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Wrapped Coast in Australia (1969), Valley Curtain in Colorado (1972), Running Fence in California (1976), The Gates in New York’s Central Park (2005), and The Floating Piers on Italy’s Lake Iseo (2016). These projects welcomed millions of viewers and fundamentally shifted global understandings of sculpture, space, and shared cultural experience.

Their preparatory works were drawings, collages, maps, plans, and photographic documentation that remain central to Christo’s legacy and are held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the National Gallery of Art. They have also been the subject of major exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Christo redefined the possibilities of public art. His monumental yet temporary interventions invited viewers to experience familiar environments in extraordinary new ways. With Jeanne-Claude, he created a legacy of innovation, independence, and breathtaking ambition and they ultimately proved that art can reshape entire landscapes, mobilize communities, and continue living long after its physical form disappears.

Explore Christo at DTR Modern Galleries

DTR Modern Galleries proudly offers access to Christo’s preparatory works, drawings, and editions across our locations in New York, Boston, Palm Beach, and Washington, D.C. Highly sought after by collectors, these works encapsulate the meticulous planning, conceptual rigor, and visionary scope of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s world-changing installations. Our contemporary program continually sources new examples of Christo’s work for both seasoned collectors and those discovering his transformative artistry for the first time.