Year 1904 | Type Oil painting Created 1904–1905 | |
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Dimensions 196 cm × 115 cm (77.25 in × 45.38 in) Similar Picasso's Blue Period artwork, Other artwork | ||
The Actor (L'acteur) is a 1904 painting by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art.
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Background
Picasso painted The Actor during the winter of 1904–1905 when he was 23 years old. The painting is a work of the artist's Rose Period when he changed his painting style from the downbeat tones of his Blue Period to warmer and more romantic hues. Picasso painted The Actor on the reverse side of a landscape painting by another artist because he could not afford new canvases at the time. From 1912 to June 1938 the painting was owned by Alice and Paul Friedrich Leffmann, originally of Cologne. The painting currently resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It was donated to the museum in 1952 by automobile heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy, daughter of Walter Chrysler, the founder of the Chrysler automobile company. Experts estimate that the painting, which is one of the largest from Picasso's Rose Period, is worth more than US$100 million.
Aesthetics
The painting portrays an acrobat in a dramatic pose with an abstract design in the background. The canvas measures 196 centimetres (77 in) by 115 centimetres (45 in).
Damage
The Actor was damaged on January 25, 2010 when a woman attending an art class stumbled and fell into the painting, creating a rip of about 15 centimetres (5.9 in) in height in the lower right corner. The museum stated that the rip did not affect the artwork's central subject. They also indicated that they intend to have the painting repaired in a few weeks by performing "unobtrusive" work. This was in preparation for an April 27 retrospective of roughly 250 of the artist's works.