The ways in which Pablo Picasso studied, stole from, and outdid the masters of earlier eras is the subject of “Picasso Looks at Degas, Renoir, Ingres…and Mantegna,” a free lecture by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Gary Tinterow. The lecture takes place at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute on Sunday, August 29 at 3:00 pm, and is open to the public.

Gary Tinterow, the Metropolitan’s chairman of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, recently curated a critically acclaimed survey of the works by Picasso in the Metropolitan’s collection. He has organized numerous exhibitions during his career, beginning with Master Drawings by Picasso (Art Institute of Chicago and Philadelphia Museum of Art); The Essential Cubism (Tate Gallery); and Juan Gris: A Retrospective (Biblioteca National, Madrid). At the Met, his exhibitions include: Degas (1988); From Poussin to Matisse: The Russian Taste for French Painting; Corot, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas; and Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch. Tinterow is a founding trustee and the first president of the national Association of Art Museum Curators.

Named one of 2010’s hot exhibitions by Harper’s Bazaar, Picasso Looks at Degas has been called “a double-barreled delight” by the Wall Street Journal. “It offers not only the chance to see many fine works that Picasso made under the inspiration of Degas, but also an equally rewarding opportunity to look over Picasso’s shoulder and examine Degas’s own achievements.” Co-curators Richard Kendall, independent curator and scholar specializing in the work of Edgar Degas, and Elizabeth Cowling, well-known Picasso expert, met with members of the Picasso family, studied hundreds of works by Picasso and Degas, and visited archives, museums, and private collections in the United States and Europe while conducting research for the exhibition. The result, Picasso Looks at Degas, explores Pablo Picasso’s direct response to Edgar Degas’s body of work over the decades. Picasso collected the Impressionist’s prints, continually reinterpreted his images, and at the end of his life, created scenes that included depictions of Degas himself. The exhibition is on view at the Clark through September 12, 2010.

Picasso Looks at Degas was organized by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and the Museu Picasso, Barcelona. It is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, and with the special cooperation of Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm (daily in July and August). Admission is free November through May. Admission is $15 June 1 through October 31. Admission is free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. For more information, call 413 458 2303 or visit clarkart.edu.