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Lot Essay
Standing among the final works completed by Christo during his lifetime, the present collage is a preparatory study for his landmark project L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped. First conceived six decades prior, the artist’s long-held ambition to wrap one of the world’s most famous monuments finally came to fruition in 2021, marking the grand culmination of his practice. Tragically, Christo himself did not live to see its completion: the project was finished posthumously, as per his wishes, following his death the previous year. Between 18 September and 3 October, the structure stood transfigured, wrapped in 25,000 square metres of recyclable silvery blue polypropylene fabric and secured with 3,000 metres of red rope. In the wake of Christo’s death, the transformation took on new and unintended meaning. For sixteen days the Arc’s memorial function was briefly transcended, commemorating not only the sorrow of lives lost in war, but also the power of a life lived through art.
Paris was a special place for Christo, who moved to the French capital from his native Bulgaria in 1958. It was there he met Jeanne-Claude—his future wife and artistic partner—and the city remained their home until 1964. It was also in Paris that Christo’s wrapping practice began in earnest. Starting with individual objects, he quickly graduated to monuments, including one of the gilded statues on the Place du Trocadéro. The artist had been fascinated by the Arc de Triomphe ever since his arrival, when he had rented a small room nearby. He dreamt of wrapping it from the very beginning, and in 1962 had made a photomontage outlining his early vision. A further collage followed in 1988, though it would be another few decades before the project took flight. In the meantime, Christo and Jeanne-Claude continued to make their mark on the city, notably wrapping the Pont Neuf in 1985. In 2025, the square adjacent to the bridge was renamed ‘Place du Pont-Neuf—Christo et Jeanne-Claude’ in their honour.
L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped takes its place alongside some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most ambitious projects. The couple wrapped their first buildings in the 1960s, including the Kunsthalle Bern and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Across the world they wrapped coastlines and trees; in 1995, they reached new heights when they wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin. As the material clung to the contours of these structures, it concealed and revealed them in equal measure. On one hand, the subjects presented themselves anew as volumetric masses, their geometries and proportions taking centre stage. On the other hand, the veiling of their external appearance forced the viewer to reappraise their history and significance: each became a ghost of itself, stories and emotions flickering within the billowing swathes of fabric. The pure aluminium coating the exterior drapery of the Arc de Triomphe was designed to weather and decay over time, eventually revealing the blue underside. The monument’s solid architectural frame was transformed into something fleeting and ephemeral: a reminder of the fate that awaits us all.
Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner, the present collage demonstrates the vital role that preparatory work played within Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oeuvre. For the couple, who placed the freedom of dreams and ideas at the core of their art, the lengthy process of conceiving and planning was as much a part of the work as the final product. ‘Jeanne-Claude and I, we do these things for ourselves,’ Christo explained: ‘… the work is not in the results. The journey is the work—it’s incredible … It’s like an adventure and it’s very exciting’ (Christo interviewed by B. Rose, Interview, 10 March 2014, online). This spirit of hope, imagination and belief in the impossible fuelled their marriage and artistic partnership to the very end, outliving Jeanne-Claude’s death and, ultimately, Christo’s too. With its exquisite draughtsmanship, haptic textures and handwritten annotations, the present work stands as a living, breathing reminder of the project that concluded their journey: right in the city where it began. ‘As they say,’ said Christo in one of his final interviews, ‘“We will always have Paris”’ (Christo quoted in C. Barliant, ‘“Freedom cannot be invented”—an interview with Christo’, Apollo, March 2020, online).
Paris was a special place for Christo, who moved to the French capital from his native Bulgaria in 1958. It was there he met Jeanne-Claude—his future wife and artistic partner—and the city remained their home until 1964. It was also in Paris that Christo’s wrapping practice began in earnest. Starting with individual objects, he quickly graduated to monuments, including one of the gilded statues on the Place du Trocadéro. The artist had been fascinated by the Arc de Triomphe ever since his arrival, when he had rented a small room nearby. He dreamt of wrapping it from the very beginning, and in 1962 had made a photomontage outlining his early vision. A further collage followed in 1988, though it would be another few decades before the project took flight. In the meantime, Christo and Jeanne-Claude continued to make their mark on the city, notably wrapping the Pont Neuf in 1985. In 2025, the square adjacent to the bridge was renamed ‘Place du Pont-Neuf—Christo et Jeanne-Claude’ in their honour.
L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped takes its place alongside some of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s most ambitious projects. The couple wrapped their first buildings in the 1960s, including the Kunsthalle Bern and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Across the world they wrapped coastlines and trees; in 1995, they reached new heights when they wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin. As the material clung to the contours of these structures, it concealed and revealed them in equal measure. On one hand, the subjects presented themselves anew as volumetric masses, their geometries and proportions taking centre stage. On the other hand, the veiling of their external appearance forced the viewer to reappraise their history and significance: each became a ghost of itself, stories and emotions flickering within the billowing swathes of fabric. The pure aluminium coating the exterior drapery of the Arc de Triomphe was designed to weather and decay over time, eventually revealing the blue underside. The monument’s solid architectural frame was transformed into something fleeting and ephemeral: a reminder of the fate that awaits us all.
Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner, the present collage demonstrates the vital role that preparatory work played within Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s oeuvre. For the couple, who placed the freedom of dreams and ideas at the core of their art, the lengthy process of conceiving and planning was as much a part of the work as the final product. ‘Jeanne-Claude and I, we do these things for ourselves,’ Christo explained: ‘… the work is not in the results. The journey is the work—it’s incredible … It’s like an adventure and it’s very exciting’ (Christo interviewed by B. Rose, Interview, 10 March 2014, online). This spirit of hope, imagination and belief in the impossible fuelled their marriage and artistic partnership to the very end, outliving Jeanne-Claude’s death and, ultimately, Christo’s too. With its exquisite draughtsmanship, haptic textures and handwritten annotations, the present work stands as a living, breathing reminder of the project that concluded their journey: right in the city where it began. ‘As they say,’ said Christo in one of his final interviews, ‘“We will always have Paris”’ (Christo quoted in C. Barliant, ‘“Freedom cannot be invented”—an interview with Christo’, Apollo, March 2020, online).