Ernie Barnes’s ‘Sugar Shack’ painting sells for $15.3 million

Ernie Barnes’s “The Sugar Shack” painting has sold at a big price.

The iconic painting that served as the cover for one of soul singer’s Marvin Gaye’s albums has sold at an auction for almost $15.3 million.

The Sugar Shack painting sold for millions

The painting’s joyous depiction of a frenetic scene in a dance hall, sold to Bill Perkins, a hedge fund manager and entrepreneur, after 10 minutes of bidding by more than 22 bidders, confirmed Christie’s auction house.

According to Christie’s, the final sale price for “The Sugar Shack” was 27 times higher than the most expensive Barnes work to sell before it. It also blew past its estimated sale price of $150,000 to $200,000.

Barnes, who passed in 2009, was born in North Carolina in 1938 and often drew upon his experiences growing up in the South during the Jim Crow era in his depictions of social moments and images of everyday Black life.

In a 2002 interview with the Oakland Tribune, Barnes said he got the idea for “The Sugar Shack” from reflecting on his childhood and “not being able to go to a dance I wanted to go to when I was 11.”

“The Sugar Shack” has become a widely recognized image — thanks in part to its appearance on Gaye’s 1976 “I Want You” album and to its use across four seasons of the sitcom “Good Times”.

Barnes’s work appeared on other album covers over the years including a 1984 cover for the The Crusaders and B.B. King’s 2000 album “Making Love is good for you.”