When Rick James’s fourth studio album, Garden of Love, failed to perform as expected, the “Super Freak” singer began to worry about his career. The record barely went gold, and promoters were losing their faith in his ability to draw big crowds at his concerts.
“Had my arrogance finally caught up with me?” James remembered thinking. “Was I too cocky for my own good? Had I lost my glow?”
According to his posthumous 2014 memoir Glow: The Autobiography of Rick James, that’s when James decided to take some time to reassess things. In order to do that, he headed out to Maui for a vacation, where he stayed at his agent Shep Gordon’s beach house. One night, Gordon threw a poolside dinner party that legendary artist Salvador Dalí also attended.
“I knew a little about art and was familiar with Dalí’s far-out paintings,” James recalled. “Like me, he had a crazy imagination.”
Rick James Lost a Priceless Salvador Dalí Portrait in the Most Rick James Way Possible
At the party, Dalí kept staring at James, which made him uncomfortable at first. Finally, Dalí said, “Señor, I am mad about the way you look. Please allow me to sketch you.”
James obliged, and Dalí spent around 20 minutes drawing a portrait of him on a napkin. James felt that Dalí had “captured his soul” with his sketch, and Dalí allowed him to keep the one-of-a-kind picture. Gordon later told James that he should be thankful because there was “no telling” what the sketch was worth.
The next morning, James lit up a joint and went for a swim. As soon as he dove into the ocean, he realized that he was wearing the same shorts he had on the night before, and that Dalí’s drawing was still in one of the pockets. When James removed the napkin afterward, it had unfortunately been reduced to nothing more than “a pattern of blurs.”
“They say pot destroys short-term memory,” James wrote, in retrospect. “I sure could have used some sharp short-term memory that morning. Without it, I ruined the only known depiction of a famous funkster by an even more famous surrealist.”
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