Why Did Bill Perkins Pay $15 Million for a Painting?

Bill Perkins paid $15 million at Sotheby's for a second copy of Sugar Shack, painted by Barnes, a football player who became a painter. The picture is a party house Barnes passed growing up in the South, which Perkins describes as Black joy during segregation. He calls the theme uniquely American, in the same sense that he calls jazz the only original American art form. The image was on a Marvin Gaye album that won a Grammy, which Perkins thinks is called After the Dance, and on the opening of Good Times. He had loved it since he was a kid.

Two copies exist. Marvin Gaye saw one in the artist's car and insisted on having it, so the painter changed that canvas for the album and then painted an exact copy of what the picture was really about. Perkins tried to buy the copy from Eddie Murphy and got no reply. He would not bid by phone in case the line dropped, so he flew to his first live auction. He had expected to pay $3 million to $5 million. A one-of-four Andy Warhol in the same sale went for $100 million. The bidding ran like a trading pit, from $2 million through about $7 million, until he and an art consultant were the last two. The total was $15 million. He told his wife to keep bidding if he fainted, and by the end he was past the amount he had been willing to pay.