Travel Tip: Art and Archaeology in United States
Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The exhibition encompasses the key subjects for which Picasso is so well known: the pensive harlequins of his Blue and Rose periods, the faceted figures and tabletop still lifes of his Cubist years, the monumental heads and classicizing bathers of the 1920s, the raging bulls and dreaming nudes of the 1930s, and the rakish musketeers of his final years. Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art features 34 paintings, 58 drawings, a dozen sculptures and ceramics, and an extensive selection of prints (some 200 from a total of 400), all acquired by the Museum over the past 60 years.

Picasso's large Rose-period painting The Actor (1904–05), which has undergone conservation after being damaged in the galleries in January, has been restored and is featured in this exhibition. This major work inaugurated Picasso's shift from the Blue-period world of tattered beggars and blind musicians to the Rose-period imagery of acrobats dressed in costumes from the commedia dell'arte. Picasso painted The Actor on the back of a previously used canvas, after covering the earlier composition with heavy paint. The picture on the reverse appears to have been a Symbolist landscape painted by another artist.

Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art is accompanied by the first comprehensive catalogue of the Metropolitan's collection of works by Picasso. This publication has been prepared by members of the Museum's curatorial and conservation staff under the direction of Gary Tinterow, who edited the catalogue and wrote the introduction.