A Dali Vanishes From Rikers Island By SUSAN SAULNY
It was strange enough that a painting by Salvador Dali graced various
walls of the men's jail at Rikers Island for almost 40 years. That it
was stolen from the jail would tax even a Surrealist's imagination.
But the city's Department of Correction confirmed last night that the
painting is indeed missing. Advertisement
The audacious thief was apparently not only brazen enough to confiscate
Dali's sketchy rendering of Christ on the cross from a locked display
case in the lobby of the men's jail, but he or she also managed to
leave behind a schlocky, B-rate copy that at least three correction
officers were puzzled to find upon reporting to work yesterday morning.
"It's a great mystery at this point," Thomas Antenen, the spokesman for
the Department of Corrections, said last night. "It looks like the
painting has been replaced by a copy. That appears to be the case based
on a consensus of nonexpert opinion, people who work near the painting
and see it day in and day out."
The panel that produced the "consensus of nonexpert opinion" would be
three correction officers and a Rikers warden, David Goodman.
The nonexperts, looking at the image of Christ that had been stapled to
the back of a display case, all agreed that "something was wrong." They
believed the painting seemed "too new and too bright," according to a
correction official who asked not to be named.
Another tip: Those staples. The picture's large golden frame had also
vanished.
"What's there ain't the real thing," the official said.
Another investigator added: "There's no question that the real one is
in the wind."
According to Mr. Antenen, the painting was said to be worth at least
$175,000 in a 1985 appraisal. An art expert quoted in a March 2001
article in The New York Times said it was worth at least three times
that much.
While correction officials have little doubt that Dali's painting has
been removed, it will probably take a few days before art experts and
police detectives are able to give a conclusive answer.
There were no leads as of last night.
And just how did the Dali get to the jail in the first place?
It was February 1965, and Dali, the Spanish Surrealist with the waxed
mustache, was wintering in Manhattan at the St. Regis Hotel with his
wife, Gala, and their pet ocelot. They were invited to a dinner party,
but Dali was too sick and did not attend.
The painter's Greek-born business associate, Nico S. Yperifanos, was
there, however, and he happened to sit next to Anna Moscowitz Kross,
the reform-minded commissioner of the city's Department of Correction.
Commissioner Kross was passionate about art as a rehabilitative therapy.
She also happened to know that Mr. Yperifanos often had tea with Dali
in the lobby of the St. Regis. She begged a favor.
In the 2001 Times article, Mr. Yperifanos recalled her saying, " `I
have many artist inmates on Rikers Island.' I want you to help me bring
Dali one day there in order to speak and in order to give pleasure to
the prisoners.' "
Soon thereafter, the Department of Correction alerted the news media in
a release bearing this headline: "Salvador Dali Goes to Prison." The
outing, planned for Feb. 26, 1965, suffered a surprise setback.
"His wife called me at 7 and said: `Nico, we have a problem. The
maestro is really sick,' " Mr. Yperifanos said in the 2001 article.
Dali had a fever of 101 when Mr. Yperifanos arrived at his 14th-floor
suite in the St. Regis. In the lobby, Mr. Yperifanos had seen
reporters, photographers and cameramen scratching around impatiently.
Dali, then 60, was too sick to take the ferry to Rikers. (At the time,
there was no bridge.) Still, he was one of the most prolific artists of
all time, and was not too sick to paint.
He dashed off the painting in less than two hours, and his wife and Mr.
Yperifanos took it to Rikers Island.
"For the dinning room of the Prisoners Rikers Ysland," Dali wrote in
the lower left corner of the canvas.
It hung in the jail's dining room for 16 years.
The painting then slid into nebulousness. Art therapy fell out of
fashion. The city's finances collapsed, the crime rate soared.
Commissioner Kross left her job in 1966 and died in 1979. Artistic
amnesia among correction officers was the order of the day.
Eventually, the painting resurfaced in a new glass case in the entryway
to the men's jail, just opposite an area where officers greet whoever
is entering the lobby. There are no security cameras in the lobby, but
Mr. Antenen said the checkpoint is staffed 24 hours a day. There are
metal detectors and vending machines.
The entrance is not for prisoners or their guests, but mainly for jail
personnel, Mr. Antennen said.
He would not speculate about how the painting might have been touched
without anyone noticing.
`It's not Alcatrez or Sing Sing, but it is a secure institution,` Mr.
Antenen said.
He continued: "Who would have access? That's going to be investigated."
Mr. Antenen conceded that he could not confirm that the original was
missing.
But he said, "We have a photo of the original and a comparison to what
is hanging there indicates some areas of, well, I don't know what the
right word here is, but it seems to indicate that the painting that is
hanging is a fairly close copy and is not the original."
He added that the copy would remain on display for the near future.