Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff (born 1935) is a Bulgarian-born sculptor who gained world-wide fame for his unique large-scale environmental artworks such as Running Fence and Valley Curtain.

Christo Vladimiroff Javacheff, who is known professionally only by his first name, was born on June 13, 1935, in Gabrovo, a small town in the Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria. Bulgaria was invaded by the Nazis during his early childhood, and later occupied by the Soviets at the end of World War II when Christo was about ten-years-old. He was the second of three sons born to Ivan Javacheff, a chemist and prominent businessman and industrialist, and Tzveta (Dimitrova) Javacheff, a political activist. His family was prominent in Bulgarian artistic circles in the 1950s and young Christo studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Bulgaria's capital city, Sofia. There the curriculum followed the tenets of Soviet Social Realism and Christo learned to paint in the strict...