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Home>Research>Library>Image Collections>Process and Participation in the Work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Introduction

Shunk-Kender Photography Collection

Early Works, Paris 1963-1964

Wrapped Museum of Contemporary Art / Wrapped Floor and Stairway 1968-1969

Wrapped Coast 1968-1969

Valley Curtain 1970-1972

# Process and Participation in the Work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Christo and Jeanne-Claude with the finished project *Valley Curtain, Rifle, Colorado, 1970–72*, August 10, 1972, gelatin silver print, Shunk-Kender Photography Collection, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Gift of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation in memory of Harry Shunk and János Kender. © Christo. Photograph: Shunk-Kender © J. Paul Getty Trust. All Rights Reserved.

Received as part of a gift by the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation to a consortium of five major art institutions, the Shunk-Kender Photography Collection at the National Gallery of Art Library's department of image collections documents exclusively the work of artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Photographs depict the artists, project staff, visitors, works of art, and location views during the 1960s to early 1970s. The collection includes materials relating to a range of projects, and is particularly rich in documentation of two large-scale projects, *Wrapped Coast* and *Valley Curtain*.

*Process and Participation in the Work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude* presents the images from the exhibition held in the East Building Study Center in 2017. It begins with a selection of early documentary photographs for Christo, spanning the early 1960s in Paris to the beginning of the artists’ wrapping of public buildings in the United States. It then focuses on *Wrapped Coast* and *Valley Curtain, *depicting myriad details of preparation, construction, and final installation of the works, and the many people who worked on them and were fundamental to their successful completion. As these monumental projects were only temporary, the artists considered the documentary photographs an integral part of the record, and the images represented the projects in subsequent gallery exhibitions and publications.

Next Section

Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the Vogel Collection

Artists' website

Roy Lichtenstein Foundation

Getty Research Institute

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