When a Salvador Dali Sketch Was Stolen from Rikers Island Prison (2003)

"That the inci­dent has nev­er been used as the basis for a major motion pic­ture seems inex­plic­a­ble, at least until you learn the details. A screen­writer would have to adapt it as not a stan­dard heist movie but a com­e­dy of errors, begin­ning with the very con­cep­tion of the crime. It seems that a few Rik­ers guards con­spired sur­rep­ti­tious­ly to replace the art­work, which hung on a lob­by wall, with a fake."

"Yet the job was, in some sense, a suc­cess, in that the draw­ing was nev­er actu­al­ly found. Dalí cre­at­ed it in 1965, when he was invit­ed by Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion Com­mis­sion­er Anna Moscowitz Kross to meet with Rik­ers Island's inmates. "Kross, the first female com­mis­sion­er of the jail sys­tem, believed in reha­bil­i­tat­ing pris­on­ers with art, includ­ing paint­ing ses­sions and the­ater pro­duc­tions," writes James Fanel­li, telling the sto­ry in Esquire."

A Salvador Dalí drawing created in 1965 for Rikers Island was stolen in 2003 and has never been recovered. Several Rikers guards conspired to replace the lobby-displayed original with a fake that was noticeably unconvincing. The replacement raised obvious questions about selling a unique work with clear criminal provenance. The drawing originated when Commissioner Anna Moscowitz Kross invited Dalí to meet inmates as part of art-based rehabilitation efforts. Dalí was prevented by a 101-degree fever from visiting and instead sent an image of Christ on the cross to the jail.

Read at Open Culture