Jeanne-Claude

Her full name was Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. The daughter of a French military officer stationed in Casablanca, she was born there on June 13, 1935. That also happens to be the birth date of the Bulgarian artist Christo, whom Jeanne-Claude met in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo was already making enigmatic wrapped artworks out of things like packages and oil drums. It was a gesture rooted in the Surrealist insight that it was possible to make familiar objects unfamiliar--and by that token strangely fascinating. The two would soon marry and form a creative partnership.

In 1964 the pair moved to New York City and began to dream about larger projects. Over the years they wrapped the Pont-Neuf in Paris and Berlin's Reichstag in bright woven fabric, ran a 24.5-mile (39.4 km) curtain fence across the Northern California landscape and created the completely enchanting project called The Gates--7,503 saffron-colored fabric panels that hung from what looked like portable goalposts positioned every few yards along the paths of New York City's Central Park.

Jeanne-Claude, who died on Nov. 18 at 74, summed up the purpose of their work this way: "We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful. The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us."