Marvin gaye sugar shack
Famed ‘Sugar Shack’ Painting by Ernie Barnes Headed to Auction at Christie’s
UPDATE (05/12/22): “The Sugar Shack” by Ernie Barnes hammered at $13 million, selling for a final price of $15,275,000 fees included, a giant record for the artist, exponentially smashing the his previous auction high impression, which was $550,000. The staggering consequence marks the first time a labor by Barnes has sold for more than $1 million at auction.
AN ODE TO MUSIC AND MOVEMENT, “The Sugar Shack” (1976) by Ernie Barnes (1938-2009) is the artist’s most recognized and iconic painting. Half a century ago, when few African American artists were well known, Barnes’s memorable painting of a sensual and soulful, late evening dance gained well-liked regard. “The Sugar Shack” image was featured on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album “I Want You” and regularly appeared during the credits on “Good Times,” the 1970s television sitcom.
Next month, the famous painting is headed to auction for the first time. Christie’s Recent York will give “The Sugar Shack” during its 20th Century Evening
The Sugar Shack
Visitors to the Blanton can view The Sugar Shack, Ernie Barnes’s famous masterpiece featuring dancing figures in a crowded Black music hall in segregated mid-century North Carolina.
The Sugar Shack became a Jet cultural icon after the first version was featured on the cover of the 1976 Marvin Gaye album, I Wish You. That identical year, Barnes created this second version, which garnered wider fame when it was added to the end credits of the groundbreaking sitcom Good Times and later became a widespread printed reproduction. The painting is on loan to the Blanton from Houston collectors Lara and Bill Perkins, who acquired it at a record-smashing auction last year. It was previously on view 2022-23 at The Museum of Pleasant Arts, Houston.
Included with museum admission and Blanton All Daytime admission. Located in the American Art galleries on the second floor of the museum.
About “The Sugar Shack“
filled with elongated, muscular figures. The Sugar Shack was based on the artist’s childhood memory of sneaking into a local Black club in segregated North Carolina to encounter what he called the “sins of dance.” Stron
Sugar Shack NEW VERSION 2021 by Ernie Barnes
Description
NOTE: In 2021 a New Version of Sugar Shack was released by the Ernie Barnes Estate without the Marvin Gaye Banner. This is the current Sugar Shack we are selling now.
Barnes created the painting Sugar Shack in the early 1970s. It gained international exposure when it was used on the Good Times television series and on a 1976 Marvin Gaye album.
According to Barnes, he created the original version of Sugar Shack after reflecting upon his childhood, during which he was not “able to travel to a dance.” In a 2008 interview, Barnes said, “Sugar Shack is a recall of a childhood experience. It was the first time my innocence met with the sins of dance. The painting transmits rhythm so the life is re-created in the person viewing it. To show that African-Americans apply rhythm as a way of resolving physical tension.” The Sugar Shack has been acknowledged to art critics for embodying the style of art composition known as “Black Romantic,” which, according to Natalie Hopkinson of The Washington Post, is the “visual-art equivalent of the Chitlin’ circuit.”
On the original Sugar Shack, Barnes included his hometown Durh
'Sugar Shack,' an iconic painting featured on a Marvin Gaye album cover that depicts Durham boogie hall, sells for $15.3 million
A painting that served as the cover for one of celebrated soul singer Marvin Gaye's albums has sold at auction for almost $15.3 million.
Ernie Barnes' joyous depiction of a frenetic scene in a dance hall, titled "The Sugar Shack," 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 costly Barnes work to sell before it. It also blew past its estimated sale price of $150,000 to $200,000.
The painting depicts a group of Black dancers enjoying a night at the Durham Armory. The Armory was a famous dance hall in segregated North Carolina back in 1952.
Barnes, who died in 2009, was born in North Carolina in 1938 and often drew upon his own experiences growing up in the American South during the Jim Crow era in his depictions of social moments and images of quotidian Black life.
In a 2002 interview, in which the Oakland Tribune described Barnes as the "Pica