The most well-known environmental artist of this half century, Christo first captured the public's attention in the 1960s by wrapping large-scale structures such as bridges and buildings. In the following three decades his artworks became lavish spectacles involving millions of dollars, acres of materials, and hundreds of square miles of land. His projects are so vast and require so much sophisticated administration, bureaucracy, and construction, that he is best thought of as an artist whose true medium is the real world.

Christo Vladimiorov Javacheff was born in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, into an intellectually enlightened family. After study in the art academy in Bulgaria, his work for the avant-garde Burian Theatre in 1956 proved decisive. Christo began wrapping and packaging objects—a technique called "empaquetage"—a year after his move to Paris in 1957. Empaquetage was a reaction to the dominance of tachiste painting, the European version of American abstract...