Was Benjaman Burglary Attempt Dali Inspired?

Salvador Dali often declared, "The more confusion the better!" His words eerily rang true at 2 a.m. this past Tuesday morning in Buffalo, New York.

That's when the owners of The Benjaman Gallery, 419 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo -- which will host the first-ever selling exhibition of the widely known Dr. Edmund Klein Collection of Dali Dedicatory Drawings (Nov. 5 - Jan. 1) -- got a startling wake-up from the Buffalo Police Department.

It seems Benjaman's Sonitrol Security System detected the sound of breaking glass, which set off a chain reaction: an immediate call to the police, an immediate response from the police, a caught-in-the-act arrest of a lone suspect. A man who was reportedly tarrying about inside the attractive, two-story gallery-- admiring a painting on the wall! (Only one previous incident of this nature occurred in the gallery's long, 40-year history as a leading Buffalo art establishment.)

Fortunately, the Dalis -- some 15 drawings and sketches Dali created, inscribed for and gifted to the late Dr. Klein, who treated Dali for a serious skin disorder -- were strategically out of view and out of harm's way in the wee hours when the would-be thief broke a back gate and glass window and illegally entered the premises.

Reportedly, nothing was stolen, no works of art damaged. It was a kind of surrealist, way-t00-early start to the Benjaman's owners' day. The kind of mad-cap confusion that would have set Dali's mustache twitching with excitement!