By Lindsay Pollock
Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- A Picasso painting, worth more than $130 million by some estimates, was gouged on Friday at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art when a museumgoer fell into the artwork, leaving a six-inch gash.
The 1904-1905 painting, “The Actor,” depicting a graceful, gaunt male figure in a dusty pink costume on stage, was hung in a second-floor gallery among a display of early Picasso artworks.
An unidentified woman attending a museum class “lost her balance’’ and fell into the artwork, according to a museum statement. The woman was not injured, said Elyse Topalian, a museum spokeswoman. The painting received a vertical tear in the lower right hand corner, the statement said. “Actor” is worth about $130 million, according to a New York art dealer.
The Picasso has been removed from the gallery and taken to the museum’s conservation studio for “assessment and treatment,’’ the statement said. Because the tear occurred in the lower portion of the canvas, the repair is expected to be “unobtrusive,’’ according to the museum.
The canvas will be included in the “Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’’ exhibition, featuring 250 works, scheduled to run April 27 to August 1.
The six-feet-tall painting is crucial to the artist’s oeuvre, signaling a shift from his early blue period to the rose period, according to the statement.
Automobile heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy and daughter of Walter P. Chrysler donated the painting to the museum in 1952.
The incident recalls casino mogul Stephen Wynn’s 2006 collision with Picasso’s 1932 “Le Reve,’’ a portrait of the artist’s mistress, when he punctured the work with his elbow. Wynn was in the process of selling his painting to hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen and later kept the work that’s since been repaired and hangs in Wynn’s office.
(Lindsay Pollock writes for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the reporter on the story: Lindsay Pollock in New York at lindsaypollock@yahoo.com;
Last Updated: January 25, 2010 01:01 EST
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