The intimate universe of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, their private collection - Lifestyle is up for auction

Christo

died in May at the age of 84 in his New York home.

Jeanne-Claude, born the same day in Morocco and met in Paris, passed away in 2009.

    The two artists had amassed a vast collection hanging from the ceiling to the floor of the New York home-studio: many pieces were the result of exchanges between colleagues , leading exponents of postwar art whose work Christo and Jeanne-Claude admired. 

There are over 400 pieces including works by Andy Warhol and Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana and Mimmo Rotella, anticipates the "Wall Street Journal".

Sotheby's expert Simon Shaw valued the collection at over $ 4 million.

The small scale of many paintings and works on paper is singular, in contrast with the 'oversize' dimensions of the couple's creations: "It is

, not their public image".

Among the pieces at auction there is

1964

that Christo and Jeanne Claude had hung near the kitchen and that Sotheby's estimates $ 975,000, while the 1958 Klein "Untitled Blue Monochrome (IKB 19) "could exceed $ 375,000.

    One of the first pieces to enter the collection is

that the couple had admired in the home of the collector Martin Visser in Holland.

In 1963 Visser exchanged it for one of their "packages" and the furniture followed the family when the following year Christo and Jeanne Claude moved to New York: "

, he said. to the "Wall Street Journal" the manager of the studio, Lorenza Giovanelli: "They brought little stuff with them: a couple of suitcases, mattresses and that chair".

Other pieces in the collection testify to his friendship with Claes Oldenburg, known in Paris and a neighbor when they all lived in the legendary Chelsea Hotel. 

the collection of the Bulgarian-New York conceptual artist who has 'packed' the monuments of half the world and his wife who is an accomplice in all his exploits will be auctioned in February 2021 at Sotheby's in Paris.

All proceeds will be used to set up a foundation, although for now the studio will remain active in view of the installation of

's

.

A project on which Christo had been working for years, as an act of love for the city that had introduced him to his wife and given him his first artistic awards.