Visitor Information
This exhibition is now closed.
There is no admission fee to visit The Gallery at Windsor. Exhibition visitors are invited to support The Windsor Charitable Foundation with a suggested donation of $10. This gift is tax-deductible and is designated to support local arts education.
About the Exhibition
In May 2012, The Gallery at Windsor opened a rare summer exhibition featuring selected works from the Weston Collection of artworks by monumental artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. A Visual Study presented original preparatory works by Christo (Javacheff) and Jeanne-Claude (de Guillebon), husband and wife artists who together created environmental artworks in urban and rural sites around the world.
The study bridged the gap between the artists and their projects, offering an account of the creative process involving some of their monumental projects undertaken between 1971 and 1998. The exhibition included preparatory drawings and collages and Cibachrome prints of completed works in situ.
About the Artists
Christo, originally from Bulgaria and Jeanne-Claude, originally from Morocco of a French military family, seemed destined to live and create together, as they were born on the same day in 1935. Christo studied art in Sofia and in Prague. Jeanne-Claude studied Latin and philosophy in Tunis. They met in Paris in 1958 and went on to create an impressive body of large scale, deliberately temporary works together.
Throughout their 51-year relationship, they paid all expenses associated with their artworks, including planning, construction and de-construction, partly from the sale of Christo’s preliminary drawings, early works from the 1950’s and 1960’s and lithographs. They accepted no contributions, grants or other financial assistance, preferring to make their decisions separate from any potential influence of financial backers. Their works involved years of planning, meetings and hearings held by governments and communities for approval of their projects.
Jeanne-Claude died, aged 74, on November 18, 2009. Until his own recent death on May 31, 2020, Christo continued to make work under both the artists’ names. Their works are held in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Musée d’art modern et d’art contemporain in Nice, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among others.