‘Good Times’: Piece of TV History Sells for $15 Million at Auction

Ernie Barnes’ The Sugar Shack sold for an astonishing $15.3 million at Christie’s 20th Century auction on May 12. The painting, featuring exuberant dancers and completed in 1976, is best known to television fans from the closing credits of Good Times. It was also featured on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album I Want You.

Energy trader Bill Perkins won the painting, which Christie’s expected to sell for $200,000 at the most. There were 22 bidders, and the auction lasted 10 minutes. “I stole it – I would have paid a lot more,” Perkins told the New York Times. “For certain segments of America, it’s more famous than the Mona Lisa.”

#AuctionUpdate Ernie Barnes ‘The Sugar Shack sets an auction record for the artist this evening, 27x the previous record set by the artist. After over 10 minutes of bidding by up to 22 bidders, the piece realized $15.275 million. pic.twitter.com/GQOH03vF0a

— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) May 13, 2022

Perkins is based in Houston, but he traveled to New York for the auction. He was sure he would be outbid by someone more famous. “What if Oprah shows up? What if P. Diddy shows up? I’m not going to be able to buy this piece,” he recalled thinking.

In the end, Perkins’ only major competition turned out to be art advisor Gurr Johs, according to art reporter Josh Baer. Johns was bidding on behalf of someone else on the phone. “[Johns] turns to me at one point and says, ‘I’m not going to stop,’” Perkins recalled. “To which I replied, ‘Then I’m going to make you pay.’”

The shocking price for The Sugar Shack far exceeds the previous record for a Barnes painting. In November 2021, Christie’s sold Barnes’ 1978 painting Ballroom Soul for $550,000. The price of The Sugar Shack was more than paintings by Paul Cezanne, Willem de Kooning, and Claude Monet during the same auction, further proof that the art world is paying more attention to the works of Black artists. Barnes, who was a pro football player before he turned to painting, died in 2009 at age 70.

In his Times interview, Perkins recalled how much of an impact Barnes’ work had on him growing up. “You never saw paintings of Black people by Black artists,” Perkins said. “This introduced not just me but all of America to Barnes’s work. It’s the only artwork that has ever done that. And these were firsts. So this is never going to happen again. Ever. The cultural importance of this piece is just crazy.” Perkins plans to loan The Sugar Shack to a museum to share it with others before he installs it in his home.

There were many other eye-popping sales during Christie’s auction, many of them far exceeding the auction house’s expectations. Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware was expected to sell for between $15 million and $20 million, but the final price was over $45 million. Several pieces by important female artists also exceeded expectations. Grace Hartigan’s Early November sold for $1.4 million, above the $800,000 to $1.2 million estimates. Howardena Pindell’s sewn canvas squares sold for $1.3 million, over twice Christie’s estimates.