Torn Picasso Returns to the Met

Besides the Plexiglass through which it’s now viewed, most visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art will not see anything different about Pablo Picasso’s The Actor since it was displayed again last week. Picasso’s rare Rose Period work was torn in January after a woman in an adult-education class fell into it one afternoon. In preparation for the museum’s upcoming exhibition, Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 105-year-old canvas was returned to the wall, where it will appear with nearly all of the museum’s pieces from Picasso—paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, and ceramics. Picasso painted The Actor, a painting of a gaunt performer leaning across the stage, when he was just 23. “I felt strongly that people would get very close to it and it needed some protection,” said Met conservator Lucy Belloli, after the three-month restoration process.