This collage is a preparatory study for Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 'The Gates' in Central Park, New York. Completed on 12th February 2005, a team of six hundred installed 7,503 saffron coloured fabric panels that were 4.87 meters tall and varying from 1.68 to 5.48 meters wide. Suspended from vinyl poles - that evoked Japanese torii gates at the entrance of Shinto shires - each was placed exactly 3.65 meters apart. The installation took over the park for sixteen days, spanning over 37 kilometres of walkways.

A huge feat of engineering and civic planning, the project allowed people to watch their city transform and see a space that they know so well in a new light. For those walking in the path a golden ceiling of fabric enveloped the sky, while when seen from buildings looking over the park 'The Gates' appeared as a golden river winding through the trees.

As with Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s previous projects, 'The Gates' was entirely financed by the sale of preparatory works including the present collage. Comparable preparatory studies for this installation can be found at the The Whitney and Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the present work, the artists have juxtaposed a detailed map of the project’s layout with a free flowing drawing of how the gates would appear when installed.

The artist ‘Christo’ refers to the collaborative oeuvre of husband and wife Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Born on the same day in 1935, the pair formed a life-long creative partnership following their marriage in 1958. The couple are celebrated for their ambitious large-scale outdoor installations that reinvent familiar landscapes and man-made constructions with a sense of joy and beauty. These works were, until 1994, credited solely to Bulgarian-born Christo Vladimirov Javacheff as the couple felt it would be harder to establish the reputation of an individual artist. Christo and Jeanne-Claude have exhibited internationally, most notably at Documenta 4 (1967-68) the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1968), and the Serpentine lake (2018). Christo’s last installation was the 2021 wrapped Arc du Triomphe which they had worked on from 1961.