Burt Chernow papers, 1930-2002

Series consists primarily of documents copied from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's personal papers by Burt Chernow, including Christo and Jeanne-Claude's passports, an address book, appointment books (referred to throughout the papers as "agendas") dating from 1961-1995 (not inclusive, with two books for each of the years 1986-1990), Commission offers, family letters, legal documents, and photographs. Chernow used these materials heavily in his writing process, generating lists of trips and contacts made from the appointment books, which were then used as a basis for his research on specific periods of the artists' lives. Except for the 1968 calendar noted as original, all biographical materials are photocopies made by Burt Chernow from the personal records of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

In his papers, Chernow identified certain appointment books as belonging to either Jeanne-Claude or Christo, and he labelled certain appointment books "travel agendas." Chernow's labeling of the appointment books has been retained in the inventory of his photocopies, but these labels are in some ways misleading. Some of the appointment books identified as belonging to one or the other actually have notations in more than one hand and must have been shared to some extent, and the appointment books Chernow called "travel appointment books" do not differ substantially from other appointment books not identified as travel-related.

Letters to Jeanne-Claude in this series include letters from her mother, father, and sister Joyce and are all in French. Legal documents document Jeanne-Claude's divorce from her first husband Philippe Planchon, and are filed with photographs of Jeanne-Claude and Planchot. These documents are also in French, and have been translated by Ann Chernow. One sound cassette with a recording of her translating the documents is also found. Nine letters from Christo written between 1957 and 1961, mostly written to his brother in Bulgarian and French, are found in the form of recorded translations to English by Maria Radicheva, made at the request of Burt Chernow. Letters are mostly to his brother, Anani Javachev. One letter is to his brother and mother, and another is found to his brother and sister-in-law, Maria. Note that paper copies of the original letters are not found in the collection, so the recorded translations are the only extant record of the letters. Commission offers include an extensive file of letters soliciting wrappings for various commercial or promotional purposes, along with Jeanne-Claude's responses to them, all rejected.

Recorded translations seem to have been produced out of sequence, with multiple letters translated on a single tape. They have been arranged chronologically by the date of the original letter as much as possible for ease of access. Reference to a tape inventory number found on each tape is included with each item listing. These numbers were also written on the tapes themselves. Note that the dates in parentheses are the dates of the original documents, and that 1992, the date of the photocopies, is based on query letter from Burt Chernow to Jeanne Claude requesting the copies dated 1992. Additional photographs of Jeanne-Claude's first wedding are found in series 1.8, Photographs.