The Gates (a), Christo and Jeanne-Claude
View Similar Items
Christo and Jeanne-ClaudeThe Gates (a), Christo and Jeanne-Claude2004
2004
About the Item
- Creator:Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1935 - 2020, Bulgarian, Moroccan, American)
- Creation Year:2004
- Dimensions:Height: 10.5 in (26.67 cm)Width: 12.5 in (31.75 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU5546261812
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
Motivated solely by a mission to spread joy and celebrate beauty through their work, Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2020; 1935–2009) created riveting large-scale public art installations that pushed ephemeral art to an entirely unprecedented new level. While the pair created prints, photography and a range of other types of art, they’re best known for their installations — working with a combination of textiles and industrial materials, Christo and Jeanne-Claude created colossal site-specific sculptures and other projects that frequently included wrapping monuments, walkways and even coastlines in reams of fabric in order to draw attention and encourage viewers to experience familiar objects and places in entirely new ways.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude frequently incorporated nature’s forces into their works, creating billowing fence lines, enormous inflatable free-standing structures and colorful floating walkways. Partners in life and art, the pair designed installations that often took years or even decades to realize and lasted for only days or weeks. Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s preparatory works and detailed drawings and collages are today a testament to their intricate ephemeral masterpieces and legacy.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s stories, incredibly, began on the exact same day — on June 13, 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, and on the very same day in Casablanca, Morocco, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon was born. While Jeanne-Claude received a broad education and a baccalauréat in Latin and philosophy, growing up in France, Switzerland, Morocco and Tunisia, Christo studied art from the age of six years old. He went on to study painting, drawing, architecture and sculpture at the National Academy of Art in Sofia before leaving Bulgaria to escape the Hungarian Revolution.
Christo spent time in Prague before a brief stint at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, moving on then to Geneva and ultimately France. He made money by painting portraits for wealthy families. After being hired by Jeanne-Claude’s mother to paint three portraits of her, Christo met his future wife and collaborator. The pair created their first environmental installation, Dockside Packages and Stacked Oil Barrels, in 1961.
Together, Christo and Jeanne-Claude pursued increasingly ambitious projects, proposing to wrap everything from trees in Wrapped Trees, Foundation Beyeler and Berower Park, Riehen, Switzerland, 1997-98 to important public buildings including the Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin, 1971–95. They also created free-standing abstract sculptures such as the 5,600 Cubicmeter Package, billowing curtains such as Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1970–72, and proposed installations in locations as far-flung as Dubai and Japan. These projects and others have been linked to the Pop art-adjacent nouveau réalisme movement.
Classically trained in drawing, Christo created preparatory sketches and collages for the projects, selling his artwork to independently fund the monumental temporary installations the pair erected. Meanwhile, Jeanne-Claude advocated for the pair’s artwork, speaking at public forums, sending proposals to municipal governments, and using her unique combination of compelling charm and stoic stubbornness to get their projects approved.
Devoted to their ideals of spreading joy and beauty, the pair accepted no commissions or commercial collaborations — all their installations were funded purely by the sale of their preparatory art. The last of their realized urban works, that 2005 project invited New Yorkers to go for a glorious walk through 7,503 saffron-fabric-draped portals along the pathways of Central Park. More than 4 million people did.
Christo’s wrapped sculptures, which he began making early in his career, as well as his preparatory works, are held in the permanent collections of museums and other institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Centre Pompidou. Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and Christo continued to realize the pair’s planned projects until his own passing in 2020.
Find original Christo and Jeanne-Claude photography, mixed media works, sculptures and prints on 1stDibs.
- Louisiana HeartsBy Jim DineLocated in New York, NYCreated by Jim Dine in 1982 as an original color lithograph on wove paper and published by the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark, Louisiana Hearts is hand-signed, dated and number...Category
20th Century Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
Price Upon Request - Korin: Superstring Theory, Takashi MurakamiBy Takashi MurakamiLocated in New York, NYCreated by Takashi Murakami in 2015, Korin: Superstring Theory is an offset color lithograph with foil and high gloss varnish on smooth wove paper. The artwork is hand-signed by the ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph
Price Upon Request - The Gates (e), Project for Central ParkBy Christo and Jeanne-ClaudeLocated in New York, NYThis offset lithograph in colors on wove paper from the Project for Central Park, New York City, was created by the artist in 2005. One of 300 hand-signed (in pencil) prints from an ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermilion)By Takashi MurakamiLocated in New York, NYCreated as a color lithograph by Takashi Murakami in 2013, DOB in Pure White Robe (Navy and Vermilion) is hand-signed by the artist in marker, and numbered, measuring 19 ¾ x 19 ¾ inc...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary More Prints
MaterialsLithograph
Price Upon Request - The Gates (m), from the Project for Central ParkBy Christo and Jeanne-ClaudeLocated in New York, NYThis offset lithograph in colors from the Project for Central Park, New York City, was created in 2003. One of 300 prints hand-signed by the artist in pencil, from the unnumbered edi...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph
- La Danse des Faunes, Pablo PicassoBy Pablo PicassoLocated in New York, NYAn original lithograph on Arches wove paper created by Picasso in 1957, La Danse des Faunes contains the artist’s stamped signature and measures 19 x 25 3/8 in. (48.3 x 64.5 cm), unf...Category
Mid-20th Century Contemporary Prints and Multiples
MaterialsLithograph
Price Upon Request
- Backyard Garden, Yue Minjun - Art, Lithograph, Limited Edition, China Art, PrintBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Backyard Garden Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, Chinese Lithograph Edition of 130 80 x 120 cm (47 1/5 × 31 1/2 in) Stamped Signature, numbered in Roman numerals In mint condition, as acquired from the publisher PLEASE NOTE: Edition numbers could vary from the one shown in the pictures. The pictures shown are only for illustrative reasons, the piece is offered unframed. The print is mounted on double sheet of paper with a poem on one spread and print on the other. Backyard Garden belongs to the set of twenty lithographs from the “Snatched Ecstasy of Yue Minjun”, which comes as a limited edition of 130 rare books. The work of Yue Minjun is instantly recognizable with its uniform laughing faces, the artist's faces. Minjun creates various realities against which the laughing figures are rendered, thus creating ambiguous images, often with the sinister atmosphere, which comes as his personal cynical reaction to various social and political dimensions of contemporary Chinese realities. Immediately humorous and sympathetic, Yue Minjun’s paintings offer a light-hearted approach to philosophical enquiry and contemplation of existence. Yue’s self-portraits have been describe by theorist Li Xianting as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China”, thus the acidic tones and commercialized vacuity of his works are used to underscore the insincerity of his figures’ mirth. “Art should be an expression of one's particular feelings and should be direct and deep. So I drew one person, and then added another and another until there were crowds of them. Then I felt my emotions to be fully expressed.„ —Yue Minjun YUE MINJUN Yue Min-Jun (born 1962, Daqing, China) is one of the leading Chinese artists. He is best known for oil paintings depicting formations of his laughing self-portraits in various settings. His iconography is easily recognisable, it challenges social and cultural conventions by depicting objects and political issues in a radical, abstract, ironic and cynical manner. Yue Min-Jun initially started painting as a hobby, subsequently he graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Hebei Normal University, China in 1985. In the 90s he joined an artist community in Yuan Ming...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Armed Forces - Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, ChineseBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Armed Forces Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, Chinese Lithograph Edition of 130 80 × 120 cm (31.5 × 47.2 in) Stamped S...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Paean on Grassland, Yue Minjun - Art, Lithograph, Limited Edition, China, PrintBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Paean on Grassland Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, Chinese Lithograph Edition of 130 80 x 120 cm (47 1/5 × 31 1/2 in) Stamped Signature, numbered...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Ingres & I, Yue Minjun- Contemporary Art, Lithograph, Limited Edition, ChineseBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Ingres and I Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, Chinese Lithograph Edition of 130 80 × 120 cm (47 1/5 × 31 1/2 in) Stamped Signature, numbered in Ro...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Lotus Pool - Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, ChineseBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Lotus Pool Lithograph in color on wove paper “BFK Rives” Edition of 130 120 x 80 cm (47.2 x 31.4 in) Stamped Signature, numbered in Roman numerals In mint condition, as a...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Armed Forces - Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, ChineseBy Yue MinjunLocated in Zug, CHYue Minjun, Armed Forces Contemporary, 21st Century, Lithograph, Limited Edition, Chinese Lithograph Edition of 130 80 × 120 cm (31.5 × 47.2 in) Stamped Signature, numbered in Roman ...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsLithograph