Christo Vladimiroc Javacheff, the large-scale landscape artist, known as Christo, passed away this past Sunday. Christo was well known for his artistic projects that would wrap or cover massive environmental and public areas. He was born in 1935 in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, and began his world-renowned work in the 60s along with his wife, Jeanne-Claude. Christo continued producing his art for the rest of his life, with his final projects unrealized before his passing.

 

Christo met Jeanne-Claude in 1958, and together they took his relatively small operation of wrapping smaller objects to producing massive pieces that transformed landscapes. He installed several impressive environmental art pieces, including The Floating Piers, which created a pathway on Lake Iseo in Italy by forming a three-kilometer-long dock-like structure made from yellow fabric that rested on polyethylene cubes, which floated on the surface of the water.

Together, the artistic couple produced dozens of projects of similar scale to The Floating Piers over their decades of work. Christo can be seen as an inspiration to anyone who has a respect for landscape-based art. While he will be missed, his final project to wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris will be appreciated upon its completion in September 2021.