Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times 
 
 Jeanne-Claude, who collaborated with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental arts projects, notably the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin, and the installation of 7,503 vinyl gates with saffron-colored nylon panels in Central Park, died on Wednesday in Manhattan, where she lived. She was 74. 
 
 The cause was complications of a brain aneurysm, her family told The Associated Press. 
 
 Jeanne-Claude met her husband, Christo Javacheff, in Paris in 1958. At the time, Christo, a Bulgarian refugee, was already wrapping small objects. Three years later, they collaborated on their first work, a temporary installation on the Cologne docks that consisted of oil drums and rolls of industrial paper wrapped in tarpaulin. 
 
 To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Indoor work was credited to Christo alone. 
 
 Their working methods, as described on their Web site, remained constant throughout the years. After jointly conceiving of a project, Christo made drawings, scale models and other preparatory works whose sale financed the project. Working with paid assistants, they did the on-site work: wrapping buildings, trees, walls or bridges; erecting umbrellas (“The Umbrellas,” 1984-91); spreading pink fabric around islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami (“Surrounded Islands,” 1980-83). 
 
 “We want to create works of art of joy and beauty, which we will build because we believe it will be beautiful,’ Jeanne-Claude said in a 2002 interview. “The only way to see it is to build it. Like every artist, every true artist, we create them for us.” 
 
 Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on June 13, 1935. Her father served in the French military. After attending schools in France and Switzerland, she earned a baccalaurate in Latin and philosophy from the University of Tunis in 1952. 
 
 In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Cyril Christo. 
 
 After working with stacked oil barrels, Jeanne-Claude and Christo moved to New York in 1964 and embarked on ever more daring projects, grander in scale and more theatrical in conception. Seemingly, there was nothing too large to be wrapped. In the late 1960s, they wrapped the Kunsthalle in Bern, Germany, one of many buildings to come. At the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 1968, they erected, with the assistance of two giant cranes, an inflated cylindrical fabric “package,” in appearance a bit like a stretched-out Michelin Man, that stood nearly 280 feet tall. 
 
 The collaborations became communal events, during construction and after. Enormous numbers of viewers were attracted to “The Umbrellas,” installed simultaneously in Ibaraki, Japan, and at the Tejon Ranch in Southern California in 1991. “The Gates,” a series of flapping banner-like panels installed in Central Park in 2005, also attracted big crowds during the two weeks that the work lasted, with each visitor handed a small sample of the saffron fabric. 
 
 At her death, Jeanne-Claude and Christo were at work on two projects: “Over the River,” a series of fabric panels to be suspended over the Arkansas River in Colorado, and “The Mastaba,” a stack of 410,000 oil barrels configured as a mastaba, or rectangle with outward-sloping sides, envisioned for the United Arab Emirates. 
 
 Like all their projects, these are intended to be temporary, a quality at the heart of the artistic enterprise. Whether executed in oil drum or brightly colored fabric, the art of her and her husband, Jeanne-Claude said, expressed “ the quality of love and tenderness that we human beings have for what does not last.” 
 
 A full obituary is here. 
 
 Michael Kimmelman’s appraisal of “The Gates” is here. 

 Artist Jeanne-Claude, who created the 2005 Central Park installation "The Gates" and other large scale "wrapping" projects around the globe with her husband Christo, has died. She was 74. 
 
 FILE -- In this Jan. 7, 2005 file photo, artists Christo, left, and his wife Jeanne-Claude discuss their Central Park art project "The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005" as they walk in New York's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Sept. 7, 2007 file photo, the artist Jeanne-Claude poses before the MetLife "Snoopy in Fashion" show in New York. Jeanne-Claude died Wednesday night Nov. 18, 2009 at a New York hospital... (Associated Press) 
 
 Jeanne-Claude died Wednesday night at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm, her family said in an e-mail statement. 
 
 Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he spoke with Christo on Thursday morning and offered condolences on behalf of all New Yorkers. 
 
 "The Gates" festooned 23 miles (37 kilometers) of Central Park's footpaths with thousands of saffron drapes hung from specially designed frames. 
 
 More than 5 million people saw "The Gates," and it was credited with injecting about $254 million into the local economy. 
 
 The family statement said Christo was deeply saddened by his wife's death but was "committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: that the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude would continue." That included completing their current installation, "Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado" and "The Mastaba" a project in the United Arab Emirates. 
 
 The Colorado project _ which they had done parts of on and off for decades _ involves spanning miles (kilometers) of the river with woven fabric. They chose the location near Canon City because of its river rapids and access to roads and footpaths. Their other projects include wrapping the Reichstag in Germany. 
 
 The two artists met in Paris in 1958 and have been collaborating for 51 years on temporary public arts projects. 
 
 Jeanne-Claude once said that the couple, like parents who wouldn't favor one child over another, felt that, "each project is a child of ours." 
 
 But she added that their favorite project was, "the next one." 
 
 Plans for a memorial will be announced at a later date, but the family said they will donate her body to science, as was her wish. 
 
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 On the Net: http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/
– Jeanne-Claude, the artist who with her husband, Christo, traveled the globe creating massive works of public art, died yesterday in New York at age 74 after a brain aneurysm. Christo and Jean-Claude first caught the public eye in the 1960s and '70s in Europe wrapping landmark buildings and bridges in colorful fabric, the New York Times reports. They recently installed thousands of saffron-colored gates in Central Park in New York. Jeanne-Claude was born in Casablanca in 1935, and met Christo in Paris in 1958. They moved to New York in 1964. A family statement from Christo says he is “committed to honor the promise they made to each other many years ago: that the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude would continue,” the AP reports. Jeanne-Claude’s joy in her work was always apparent. When asked once what her favorite project was, she replied “the next one.”