Daily News du lieu suivant : New York, New York • 672

n. ZaX ODDGp Li CD go And now it's gone and hotel is feeling bad OUn Lfl(jDGn (3US By GUS DALLAS He left the painting to dry. The be- -numbed management placed it in a linen closet "Nymphs" stayed on the dining room wall and continued to grace the menu covers. The Berkshire folks were not too pleased with the deal, but months passed and they began to take heart when Dali never returned to claim their "Nymphs." They breathed easy only until January 1962, when Dali came back with a van and carted off the Bou-geureau. Dali conies to collect Possibly to be distinctive, Dali showed up wearing a plastic helmet with two Kewpie dolls sticking off the top 'like a pair of horns.

Their eyes lighted up. The hotel people felt they had been had, particularly after Dali announced that he actually liked Bougeureau's work and predicted that in another five years, "this painting may be worth as much as a Dali." "Nymphs" was valued around $3,500 at the time even though the feeling was that several other copies existed, all the work of Bouguereau. Two are known to be connected with hotels. The Barberry work traces back to the Nymph Room of the Stacy-Trent Hotel in Trenton, N.J., which had obtained it in the 1930s from a Southern iron tycoon. A similar painting with slightly different measurements hangs in the Ster ling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.

Clark bought that work after World War II from a New York art dealer who found it in a storage warehouse. That painting had hung in the bar of the old Hoffman House, the bar was the biggest on Broadway. The owner of that painting was playboy Edward S. Stokes who had bought into the hotel in 1877 after serving a four-year stretch in Sing Sing for doing in famed financier Big Jim Fisk in a disagreement over Josie Mansfield, a. dame noted for her nymphlike attributes.

Stokes died in 1901 and the hotel's art works were sold. The story is that a collector who acquired the Hoffman House painting at auction never showed off the aggressive nymphs because of his family's religious scruples. A third copy, bigger than the Barberry or Williamstown ones, is reported to exist but nobody knows for sure. In any case, Dali had made an agreement that after a year the Berkshire Hotel would obtain permanent possession of his abstract, then give him the Bouguereau to destroy. But as time passed, the hotel people's misgivings grew and grew.

Stood In tho closet Lawyers told the Berkshire people that they had signed an agreement with and the deal stood. So did Dali's abstract it stood in the linen closet and was forgotten, until last year, when the Berkshire was bought by Dunfey' Hotels and the story came up again. Dunfeys have renovated the hotel and have renamed it Berkshire Place. Before the hotel's interior was razed, people searched nook and cranny in the old building but could not find the Dali painting. The interior was demolished carefully, pains being taken to make sure the painting had not been hidden in a false panel or somehow covered.

No such luck. Former employes of the hotel were located, but none could shed light on the mystery. A Dunfey executive sent a telegram to Dali in Spain asking if the artist had any information, but no reply was Who abstracted the abstract? A rag for tho brushes A disturbing theory has been suggested a couple of times. When workmen painted walls and decorations periodically at the Berkshire, they sometimes left their supplies in closets. There is a dreadful possibility, the theory goes, that painters may have spotted the Dali daubing leaning against a wall, assumed it was used as a board for wiping brushes, laid it out flat and used it accordingly.

Dunfey is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who can help in recovering the vanished painting. Anyone knowing anything about the art is asked to contact Philip Georges, the hotel's general manager, at (212) PL 3-5800. MIDTOWN MANHATTAN HOTEL had a brush with dor Dali in 1960 when the artist traded one of his paintings for a painting in the hotel's dining room. The management later was sorry about the swap and hid the Dali painting in a closet A new management is sorry now they did that, because the Dali painting, which could be worth as much as $50,000, has vanished. The picture trade came about after Dali took offense at a painting of robust nudes hanging in the Barberry dining room of the Hotel Berkshire, at Madison Ave.

and 52d St A touch of panocho The Iberian artist didn't object to the depiction of cheeky young women'rois-tering with a satyr. He said the 19th Century painting, Adolphe Bougeureau's "Nymphs Surrounding a Satyr," was rotten art and offered to swap one of his canvases for it Not one to dilly-dally, Dali returned in a few days and whipped off an abstract impression of "Nymphs" right in the dining room in 13 minutes. He sloshed colors over a 7-foot canvas and also over incredulous bystanders. For a touch of panache, he squirted a tube of color on a rubber cap he wore and used his head as an applicator. i ti ii t- Aj I i 1 Hi -Vt i' UTriM Will II I MH Hi Mews photo by Hal Mathewsoe -J 9 It's 1960, and world-famous Salvador Dali creates his abstract version of "Nymphs and Satyr," using paint, brushes, hands, and even his head, in a 13-minute workout before a party of 200 celebrities.

Now it's 1962, and Dali shows up in space helmet to claim Bouguereau's original. On left is his quickie replacement, which may now be worth 50G. Standing behind the artist is moving man wearing expression that may mean he thinks somebody is nuts..