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"You hear so many rumors in prison," says Alexander Jenkins, "you can never be sure which are true." So when Jenkins became warden of New York's Rikers Island prison last summer, he decided to check out one that was especially intriguing. Was the rather grim watercolor of the Crucifixion hanging in the prison mess hall for 16 years and signed Dali in fact the work of the famed Spanish surrealist? The answer, obtained from a Dali dealer earlier this month, is yes, and the work may be worth upwards of $75,000. Learning this, Benjamin Ward, commissioner of the city's strapped corrections department, made plans to sell it and use the money for an inmate art program. Then he changed his mind. The painting itself, he decided, might "inspire" an art program. Said he: "Many of the prisoners enjoy doing artwork," and Dali's opus, completed by the master in 90 minutes flat, "looks like something you might want to try yourself.''
—By Claudia Wallis
On the Record
David Louis, member of the Kansas legislature, endorsing a bill proposing to make the channel catfish the state fish: "We send this measure to our largemouth lasses and laddies in the senate. We pray, by cod, it does not flounder there."
Barbara Stanwyck, veteran actress, on how Hollywood has changed since the '40s: "Today someone buys a book or a play and asks, 'Who can we go to the bank with?' not 'Who is right for it?' Hollywood today is like a series of Mobil stations leased to a distributor."