Jeanne-Claude and her husband Christo were famous for constructing dramatic installations around the world; including wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany with fabric, and hanging giant drapes across New York's Central Park - the latter was seen by more than five million people.

Announcing his wife's death in a statement on their website, Christo says he is "deeply saddened" but has vowed "the art of Christo and Jeanne-Claude will continue".

At the time of her death, the pair was in the process of covering the Arkansas River in Colorado and constructing a pyramid of 410,000 oil barrels in the United Arab Emirates.

The couple met in Paris, France in 1958, but has lived in New York for the past 45 years - and the city's mayor Michael Bloomberg has paid tribute to Jeanne-Claude's contribution to the Big Apple's art legacy: "New York City lost one of our great artists."

Her body will be donated to scientific research.