[JEANNE CLAUDE / CHRISTO ] THE IRON CURTAIN PHOTO ORIGINAL! Album Famille 17

He calls himself a Macedonian Bulgarian of Czech origin. His father owned a chemical factory and his mother was general secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia until 1931. His mother had fled Macedonia in 1913. Christo’s family served extensively as a refuge for artists and friends fleeing the Allied bombing of cities. Christo’s childhood memories also include the bodies of partisans executed in the streets and the entry of the Red Army into Bulgaria in 1944. Christo’s father was harassed and imprisoned by the new communist regime for «sabotage.» We can therefore say that Christo’s childhood was quite harsh and that it surely had a significant impact on the artist. Very early on he had contact with art. At the age of 6, he made portraits of many women in the village. In 1953 he bega.