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† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice, is contributing editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm CST

Art and Freedom/Dali at Rikers
by nancy a heitzeg

” …You are artists. Don’t think your life is finished for you. With art, you have to always feel free.” Dali

The story seems an impossible one, too incredible to be true. How could there be an art class for prisoners at Rikers Island? How could it be that Salvador Dali was planning to attend one day in 1965? How could the painting he gifted to prisoners be safe in the dining hall for nearly 2 decades — located near the trash cans — only to be removed and later stolen by prison staff?

True it is.

“The story begins in February 1965, when Dali scheduled a visit to Rikers while living at the St. Regis Hotel just off Fifth Avenue.

The boat trip to the jail was to be signature Dali, another spectacle for an artist already renowned for his mix of surrealism and self-promotion. Inmate artists would get to visit with the mustachioed Spaniard, who spent a few weeks behind bars himself as a rebellious art student in the 1920s. Accompanying him would be an array of reporters, his pet ocelot and his wife, Gala.

But the visit never happened. Dali awoke feeling feverish on the morning of Feb. 26. Outside, the temperature was dropping from the 50s to a bitter 25, the wind blowing hard down the city streets.

“The maestro is very sick,” Gala said on the phone to Dali’s associate, Nico Yperifanos, who had organized the trip to benefit the jail’s inmate arts program.

But Dali didn’t want to disappoint. Still in his bedclothes when Yperifanos rushed over to his 10th-floor suite, he ordered a message delivered: “Go down and tell them Dali is sick. But in one hour, an hour and a half, there will be a wonderful gift for the prisoners of Rikers Island.”

Yperifanos, now 84 and still sharp in his dress, his conversation and his memories, recalls Dali’s whispered instructions as they walked to the artist’s third-floor studio: No talking.

Still in slippers, the master took up his brush. An hour and 15 minutes later, it was finished, and Yperifanos went alone to the jail and the waiting inmates, gift in hand.

“He’d like to give a message to the prisoners that you are artists. Don’t think your life is finished for you. With art, you have to always feel free,” Yperifanos recalls telling the prisoners.”

We do know too how the story ignominiously ends (see links below), but the now disappeared provocative painting leaves questions still. Why did Dali – known for vivid, small surrealist pieces – choose as the subject of his gift the large black and white/watercolor and charcoal brutalized blood-shot eye Crucified Christ? Why did the famously flamboyant man – he of outsize ego and flirtations with fascism-  feel so compelled, so obligated to communicate this with those locked away?

And, in the end, how many were inspired?

Art is a Hammer….

Salvador Dali Original Hangs in N.Y. Rogues’ Gallery

The Time a Salvador Dali Painting Was Stolen From Rikers Island

Theft of a Dalí Painting Puts Rikers Island in a New Neighborhood

Warden Sentenced for Stealing Dali Painting From Rikers Island Jail

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