Sotheby's auction house in Paris has Christo and Jeanne-Claude's personal art collection up for auction. A sketch for their work "The Umbrellas" sold for five times the estimated value.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo Image: Sotheby’s
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The art world has an eye on Paris this week. It's not often that the personal collection of a pair of deceased artists gets sold off to the highest bidder. The duo of tireless packaging artists have collected these works over the course of their colorful lives. At the first part of the auction on Wednesday, sales soared to $9.8 million; the remaining lots are to be auctioned on Thursday.
Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, Christo followed her in May of 2020. According to the will, the works are to be auctioned for the benefit of the family — 400 lots in total, supplemented by some Christo works from the estate.
What is special about the Paris auction, however, is the personal connections that this art collection reveals: The common threads in the collections of Christo (1935-2020), who came from Bulgaria, and his wife Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009), from French Morocco, are the artists' contacts and friendships, first in Paris and later in New York, from where they organized their famous wrapping projects around the world.
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Many works have personal dedications.
The majority of the works to be auctioned come from their early years together — the late 1950s and early 1960s — when Christo and Jeanne-Claude belonged to the Parisian avant-garde.
This also included Yves Klein, the co-founder of the Nouveau Réalisme (new realism) art movement. Christo became friends with the inventor of the famous International Klein Blue (IKB). Both exchanged works: for one of his "packages" Christo received the small, completely blue canvas "Blue Monochrome (IKB 19)" from 1958. Sotheby's estimates it's worth at least €200,000 ($241,000).
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The collection of the packaging artists
Sotheby's is auctioning the art collection of the famous artist pair in Paris. The works give new insights into the creative world of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Image: Sotheby’s
Artists at work
Jeanne-Claude and Christo became famous globally for their phenomenal wrapping projects, which included covering bridges, parks, landscapes and even the Reichstag in Berlin. This photograph was taken at the artists' atelier in New York. Christo passed away last year, over a decade after his wife died in 2009.
Image: Sotheby’s
International Klein Blue
The monochromatic blue with a slight red tinge seems to pull the viewer into the picture. The color, now known as the International Klein Blue, was created by the French artist Yves Klein (1828-1962), who also got it patented. Christo met Klein in Paris and got this picture as a gift. The painting sold for € 350,000 ($422,000) plus fees at the auction.
Image: Sotheby’s
A chair signed by its maker
Christo loved this Gerrit Rietveld chair, probably because of its uncompromising modernity and austere form, which was a contrast to the curves in the artist's wrapping projects. Like many other works from the artist couple's collection now being auctioned, this chair is also signed by its maker. It sold for €170,000.
Image: Sotheby’s
A package made of silk
Christo and Jeanne-Claude faced the prospect of going bankrupt more than once, because both artists financed their works themselves. They earned money by selling prints of their design drawings, rights to photographs and pieces of material they used for wrapping. This piece of silk was also used as packaging in one of the artists' projects. It sold for €420,000.
Image: Sotheby’s
A television for fish
South Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006) is the artist behind this wooden television frame, a work titled "Sonatine for Goldfish." Nam is believed to have actually used similar casings like an aquarium to keep goldfish. This piece from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's collection fetched €15,000.
Image: Sotheby’s
Food for thought: bacon and eggs
This sculpture by Claes Oldenburg is descriptively titled "Bacon and Egg, Ice Cream and Beef Steak." The American pop artist left Christo and Jeanne-Claude his atelier in an old cloth factory in New York, where the couple lived from 1964 onwards. Oldenburg also gave them this sculpture, which sold for €82,000, including fees — more than expected.
Image: Sotheby’s
Andy Warhol, Jackie, 1964
Jackie Kennedy was one of Andy Warhol's muses. The artist, who elevated pop art to the status of high culture, reproduced the former First Lady in several images. Christo and Jeanne-Claude did not know him personally, but were collectors of his work."Jackie" sold for €750,000, and an additional €170,000 in fees.
Image: Sotheby’s
The Umbrellas, 1991
The "Umbrellas" was the only project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude that spanned over two hemispheres. For the spectacular work, which opened on October 9, 1991, the couple installed over 3,000 umbrellas in Ibaraki in Japan and in southern California. This picture is a sketch of the design that ended up fetching five times more than expected at the auction: €1.4 million, fees not included.
Image: Sotheby’s
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Quite a number of works in the auction tell of such friendships. Lucio Fontana's painting "Concetto Spaziale, Attesa" (1963), for example, which is valued at €300,000 to €500,000, is dedicated to Jeanne-Claude on the reverse. It once hung on a wall of the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street, where Jeanne-Claude and Christo initially stayed after moving to the USA.
Below the picture was the only piece of furniture that the artist couple had taken with them from Europe — the modern "Hoge Stoel" by Gerrit Rietveld, one of Christo's lifelong favorites. The estimated price is now €80,000 to €120,000.
Christo exchanged an early work for Claes Oldenburg's 'Bacon and Egg, Ice Cream and Beef Steak'Image: Sotheby’s
Legendary Chelsea Hotel
The artists Daniel Spoerri and Claes Oldenburg also lived in the Chelsea Hotel at that time. Oldenburg offered that Christo and Jeanne-Claude take over his studio in an old factory building, where they lived from 1964.
Here Christo tinkered his "Store Front" works, made from found objects from demolished houses. In exchange for an early "Store Front" work, Oldenburg gave Christo the sculpture duo "Bacon and Egg, Ice Cream and Beef Steak." It bears the dedication "to Christo from Claes". At the auction, it could bring in €40,000 to €60,000. Like many of the works here, it breathes a touch of art history. Adapted from German by Carl Holm
Christo and his large-scale artworks
The Bulgarian-American artist was renowned for wrapping building and landscapes. A tribute to Christo, who died at the age of 84.
Image: Christo and Jeanne-Claude/W. Volz
Wrapping the Arc de Triomphe (2020)
The "Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped" was announced as the last large-scale project completed by Christo during his lifetime. The Parisian landmark at the end of the Champs Elysees was to be covered in September 2020 with a silvery-blue recyclable fabric, tied by a red rope. Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude had developed the concept for this installation back in 1962.
Image: AFP/Christo and Jeanne-Claude - 2018 Christo/Andre Grossmann
Christo and Jeanne-Claude (1997)
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff was born in Bulgaria on June 13, 1935. After studying art in Sofia, he fled to the West. In Paris he met his future wife, Jeanne-Claude, with whom he initiated spectacular art projects in the late 1960s. Christo took care of the art, Jeanne-Claude the organization.
Image: picture alliance/KEYSTONE
Packaging air (1968)
Christo developed his first elaborate installations in the 1960s, wrapping everyday objects such as chairs, magazines and oil drums. Later he created "Air Packages" such as this 5,600-cubic-meter installation at the Documenta 4 art fair in Kassel in 1968, which earned him worldwide recognition.
Image: cc-by-3.0/Dr. Ronald Kunze
Valley Curtain (1972)
In the 1970s, projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude grew more elaborate and colorful. To preserve their artistic freedom, the couple financed the installations by selling drawings, photographs and models of their works. In this spectacular creation from 1972, a 400 meter (1,310 ft.)-long cloth was stretched across Rifle Gap, a valley in Colorado.
Image: picture alliance/Everett Collection
A different look at things (1985)
Christo and Jeanne-Claude never concealed objects and buildings to the point that they could no longer be recognized. The packaging was meant to stimulate the viewer's imagination. In 1985, they wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris. Depending on the weather, the fabric would glitter differently — allowing the bridge to literally appear in a different light.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Art of superlatives
In the 1990s, the art interventions of Christo and Jeanne-Claude became increasingly gigantic and risky. A worker died during the installation of one of the 3,000 umbrellas set up in both Japan and California for the project "The Umbrellas." Afterwards, Christo hired only professional climbers and engineers. He also commissioned German companies to manufacture the huge fabrics for his art.
Image: Getty Images/Gamma-Rapho/K. Kaku
The 'Wrapped Reichstag': a happening (1995)
The journey from the initial idea to the completion of an artwork can be lengthy. It took Christo and Jeanne-Claude 23 years to bring about their project "Wrapped Reichstag." The spectacular show finally took place in June 1995 when they wrapped the seat of the German parliament with 100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of silver fabric. Within 16 days, 5 million visitors came to see it.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Kneffel
Barrels in the Wall (1999)
Christo started working with oil drums back in the 1960s. In 1962 he blocked a Parisian street with stacked barrels. The barricade, titled "Iron Curtain," was created in protest of the construction of the Berlin Wall. He referred to the division again in his 1999 installation "The Wall," a 26-meter-high wall made of 13,000 oil barrels set up in the Gasometer, an industrial space in Oberhausen.
Image: Wolfgang Volz
Land Art project 'The Gates' (2005)
Christo and Jeanne-Claude not only covered objects and structures but also designed landscapes and parks, such as here in 2005 with "The Gates" in New York's Central Park. Christo and Jeanne-Claude planned the gates with the blowing fabrics in 1980, but the approval of the project took even longer than the "Wrapped Reichstag." Environmental concerns were the main issue.
Image: picture-alliance/Schroewig/Graylock
A walkable air package (2013)
Christo's wife Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and it took a few years for the artist to return to his projects. "Big Air Package" from 2013 was the first project he designed alone. The 90-meter-high, air-filled textile package was set up in the Oberhausen Gasometer. Visitors could walk inside the huge sculpture — a fascinating spatial experience.
Image: Wolfgang Volz
Walking on water: 'Floating Piers' (2016)
With "Floating Piers," Christo fulfilled a longtime dream: to walk on water. Over 1.2 million visitors came to walk the three-kilometer stretch of pontoons on Lake Iseo in Italy. Like all of his projects, Christo financed the roughly €13 million ($14 million) work by selling sketches and photos, allowing him to remain free and independent of sponsors.
Image: Getty images/F.Monteforte
'The Mastaba' in London (2018)
Like the air packages, variations on the idea of the mastaba regularly appeared in Christo's works. The pyramid, modeled after an Ancient Egyptian tomb, was a temporary installation in London's Hyde Park in 2018. The 7,506 oil barrels stacked on a floating platform were Christo's first major outdoor project in the UK.
Image: Reuters/S. Dawson
A monument to the artist couple
The Mastaba in London was a foretaste of the great mastaba that Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned for Abu Dhabi. The gigantic pyramid of 410,000 oil barrels was to be the artist couple's first major permanent project. They often visited their desired location in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. "The Mastaba," featured on Christo's homepage, remained a dream.
