Woman falls and rips Picasso painting

The accident left a 15cm tear in the Picasso's 'The Painter'.

A PICASSO painting damaged when a woman lost her balance and fell on the canvas last week will be repaired in time for an exhibition of the artist's works in April.

The Actor, a painting from Picasso's rose period, will be restored at the museum's conservation laboratory, the Metropolitan Museum said on Monday.

The accident has also led museum director Thomas P Campbell to request a review of relevant policies and procedures, spokeswoman Elyse Topalian said.

The museum described the damage as an irregular 15cm tear to the lower right-hand corner of the painting.

Conservation and curatorial experts "fully expect" that the restoration "will be unobtrusive", the museum said in a statement on Sunday.

The 1.2m by 1.8m art work depicts a standing acrobat in a pink costume and blue knee-high boots striking a pose against an abstracted backdrop.

The restoration will be done in the coming weeks, and the piece will be displayed as planned in an exhibition of 250 Picasso works drawn from the museum's collection, from April 27 to August 1, the museum said.

The accident occurred in a second-floor gallery of early Picasso works when a patron participating in an art class lost her balance and fell on the canvas, the museum said. She was one of 14 people in the guided group.

It happened during regular visiting hours when other visitors were in the gallery. People who attend the art classes typically roam through the museum in a group stopping in front of works of interest.

The Actor was donated to the Met in 1952 by art patron Thelma Chrysler Foy, the elder daughter of automobile magnate Walter Chrysler.

The museum said it had been included in many major exhibitions of Picasso's works in the US and in Europe.

Picasso painted the work in the winter of 1904-05. It marked a transition from his blue period of tattered beggars and blind musicians to his more optimistic and brighter-coloured rose period of itinerant acrobats in costume.

In 2006, another Picasso was accidentally damaged during a private showing of the artist's Le Reve. The art work's owner, casino mogul Steve Wynn, was showing the work - a portrait of Picasso's mistress, Marie-Therese Walter - to a group of friends in Las Vegas when he inadvertently poked a thumb-size hole in the canvas with his elbow.

The accident occurred just after Wynn had negotiated a deal to sell the painting for $US139 million ($A154 million). After repairs it was valued at $US85 million ($A94 million).