A breakthrough was possible, not from the efforts of research and scholarship, but from a physical problem Shank called "a fluke." The top layer of the "Rue de Montmartre" was riddled with microscopic cracks and lost flakes of paint. If Hoenigswald could see a completely different color palette beneath the image with her naked eye, what could one see with a microscope?

"I realized I could learn exactly what colors Picasso had chosen and apply it to the X-radiograph," Shank said, "and create a digitized version of the earlier composition." Recall the 1,600 X-radiographs on file at the National Gallery of Art alone: No conservator has ever colorized a single one.

This new image of the black-and-white X-radiograph was to be the centerpiece of the SFMOMA show. Shank planned to make a grid of the painting and X-ray film. He planned to transfer Picasso's colors by taking microscopic sample pinpricks from the cracks radiating across the painting's surface. It would have been invasive, but well within the protocol of Shank's field. He expressed great excitement about using the powerful scanning and computing tools that nearby Silicon Valley companies had made available.

But in June 2000, SFMOMA cut the funding for the creation of a color version of the X-radiograph, and by July the entire show was canceled.

Sometime in spring 2002, however, Shank received an e-mail from Paul Schwartzbaum, chief conservator of the Guggenheim museums and technical director of international projects, proposing to Shank that the show might work well in their Bilbao museum, which in 2004 was set to host the 20th Congress of the International Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.

With the Guggenheim's backing, Shank revived the idea of a colorized X-radiograph. He returned to SFMOMA (which, after all, owns both the X-radiograph and the Picasso) to work with Tim Svenonius, the museum's production manager for interactive educational technologies. Together, they digitally scanned the painting at 500 pixels per inch and used Adobe Photoshop to capture the color information.

"You can see just as deeply into a crack with a digitized image as you can with a microscope," says Shank. "Using the eyedropper tool, we lifted the colors out in the most noninvasive way imaginable." The computer also made it easy to overlay the location of each pinprick of color with its coordinate location on the X-ray film. "I can't believe I was originally going to try and do that by hand," he says with a laugh.

"I don't think that what Will has achieved with such elegance and clarity was even possible five years ago," says Hoenigswald.

"My colleagues were pleasantly astonished by this," Shank says. "It's still a replica. There is no nuance of brushwork. But digitally colorizing a black-and-white image, using the artist's exact specifications without harm to the original? This has never been done before, let alone put on display before a curious public."

Given SFMOMA's role in developing the show, not to mention the importance of Silicon Valley technology in presenting its central discovery, it seems unfortunate that "A Hidden Picasso" was not unveiled in San Francisco, nor will it travel to the Bay Area.

David Ross, the former director of SFMOMA and currently executive vice president of the Artist Pension Trust in New York, says he can't recall precisely why the museum passed on the exhibit four years ago. While the show's modest size and scholarly appeal may have made it a tough sell, he says, "If you put the name 'Picasso' on any exhibit, it'll be popular. People would be interested in his underwear."

Ultimately, Ross says, "it wasn't the topic or funding" that led to the show being cut. "There were other matters happening, politics of another level."

"It was part of the larger picture of budget cuts," Shank offers diplomatically. "'A Hidden Picasso' was not the only exhibition to get axed that year. It happens to all kinds of museum shows. At least my show has a happy ending."

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