Christo

Christo (American/Bulgarian, b.1935) is a sculptor best known for his unique wrapped works, which span from small-scale wrapped books to entire buildings and sites in nature, encased in fabric. Christo, born Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff, attended the art academy in Sofia as a youth, trained in the Socialist Realist aesthetic of the era. He moved to Prague, where he was first exposed to the work of early European modernists, and later to Paris, where he befriended a group of artists including Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely, who called their artistic movement “New Realism.” Christo also met his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude Guillebon in Paris, and the two would collaborate on future outdoor and public works; Jeanne-Claude also manages the financial and organizational aspects of many of the large-scale works.