The Sugar Shack is an iconic image in part because it was paired with an iconic album, Marvin Gaye’s 1976 I Want You. Recently it was put up for auction valued at $200,000. After an intense 10 minutes of bidding, it sold for $15.3 million.
Bill Perkins, the highest bidder, owns several of Barnes’ pieces and had to have this one to add to his collection. Perkins said “You know those scenes in Westerns, or Pirates of the Caribbean, where everybody is fighting, and Johnny Depp just walks in and out with the treasure? That’s been me at every other auction.”
How many of you feel the same way while at auction fighting for that “one piece”? Turns out Marvin Gaye’s, I Want You has more meaning than just a love song.
Image: Ernie Barnes, The Sugar Shack (1976). Courtesy of Christie’s New York.
