site.btaNational Library Exhibition Celebrates Christo Javacheff's 90th Anniversary

Posters with the signature of Christo Javacheff - Christo, books and postcards are part of an exhibition with which the National Library celebrates the 90th anniversary of the famous Bulgarian. A total of 17 materials are featured in the exhibition which opened on Friday. Some were donated to the Library personally by Christo Javacheff, while others are in the Library's collection on deposit. There are books in both Bulgarian and English, the National Library team told BTA.

Due to the limited space on the second floor of the library, the exhibition does not include any of the items on display. Such is a collector's book-album with Javacheff's personal signature. The edition shows his works up to 2010 and was originally conceived to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Christo and his beloved Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. The catalogue was designed by Christo himself and was published in an edition of 1,500, the first 410 being personally signed by him. The National Library owns the 278th copy, received as a personal donation from Christo Javacheff, library specialists explained.

"Included here are hundreds of drawings, designs and photographs that have never been published anywhere else before," they noted.

The National Library's specialists added that the editions are in the library's catalogue and can be viewed by its readers.

The world-famous Bulgarian artist, sculptor and avant-garde artist Christo was born in Gabrovo. He is a graduate of the Sofia Academy of Art and is known for his and his wife Jeanne-Claude's original spatial art installations.

Christo was most well known for wrapping various objects, from a typewriter and a telephone to entire buildings, islands and even the coast. Among Christo's iconic creative installations were the wrapped Reichstag building in Berlin and the Pont Neuf - the oldest bridge in Paris, he stretched 38-kilometre canvas curtains in California and placed canvas portals in Central Park in New York, the National Library recalled.