Christo (American, 1935-2020) The Pont Neuf Wrapped/Project for Paris

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Fine Paintings & Sculpture

By Bonhams Skinner

Sep 25, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-09-25 12:00:00 2020-09-25 12:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Fine Paintings & Sculpture https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/skinner/fine-paintings-sculpture-5569
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• Lot Description
  Christo (American, 1935-2020)
  
  The Pont Neuf Wrapped/Project for Paris
  Signed and dated "Christo 1985" l.r.
  Mixed media including pencil, charcoal, wax crayon, photograph by Wolfgang Volz, enamel paint, and tape on paper, 11 x 14 in. (28.0 x 35.5 cm), framed.
  Condition: Mounted to pressed paperboard.
  
  Provenance: Gift from the artist to the current private collection, Massachusetts, as thanks for engineering assistance with The Pont Neuf Wrapped project.
  
  N.B. After ten years of negotiations, Christo and his wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude, finally received permission from French authorities and Parisian residents to install The Pont Neuf Wrapped in September 1985, for a brief fourteen-day period. A group of 300 professional workers joined the team of American engineers who worked regularly with Christo and Jeanne-Claude to cover the Paris bridge with 450,000 square feet of silky, golden sandstone-colored fabric to create a fully immersive experience. The fabric covered the sides and vaults of the bridge's twelve arches without hindering river traffic, the parapets, the sidewalks and curbs (pedestrians walked on the fabric), all the street lamps on both sides of the bridge, and the entrances to the bridge at both sides. The artists financed all of their monumental projects exclusively through the sale of collages and preparatory drawings made by Christo. These works not only record the technical aspects of the artists' temporary installations, but also serve as remarkable landscapes in their own rights. The work at hand is one such preparatory collage; however, it was presented as a gift to one of the project's American engineers, who worked with Christo and Jeanne-Claude on a volunteer basis. Despite the loss of Christo in May 2020, the next planned project, L'Arc de Triomphe Wrapped (initially scheduled for the fall of 2020, but delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions), will go forward, with current plans to realize the installation in the fall of 2021, nearly 60 years after Christo and Jeanne-Claude had begun to formulate the work. The Centre Pompidou's accompanying exhibition, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Paris!, opened July 1, 2020, with only a slight delay, and will continue until October 19, 2020. This major exhibition retraces the story of The Pont Neuf Wrapped in anticipation of the wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe in 2021.
  
  We would like to thank the artist's office for their assistance in cataloging this lot and for confirming that the work is registered in their files.
  Estimate $45,000-55,000
  
  
  Items may have wear and tear, imperfections, or the effects of aging. Any condition statement given, as a courtesy to a client, is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Skinner shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.
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