"I stole it — I would have paid a lot more. For certain segments of America, it’s more famous than the 'Mona Lisa.'"

Said Bill Perkins, quoted in "Ernie Barnes’s ‘Sugar Shack’ Painting Brings Big Price at Auction/An iconic image sells for $15.3 million at Christie’s to Bill Perkins, an energy trader, who says he’s been waiting his whole life to buy that work of art" (NYT). 

Ernie Barnes’s most famous painting, “The Sugar Shack,” an exultant dancing scene that was featured on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s album “I Want You” and during the closing credits of the TV sitcom “Good Times,” sold for a whopping $15.3 million at Christie’s 20th Century auction on Thursday evening to the energy trader Bill Perkins. It was 76 times its high estimate of $200,000.... 

“What if Oprah shows up? What if P. Diddy shows up?” he recalled thinking. “I’m not going to be able to buy this piece.... I’ve been waiting like 40 years for this moment,” he said. “I’m not going to let it pass.”

 

ADDED: "Sugar Shack" is the dream of a great night out — everyone is dancing and transported by the music. When you go out at night, you can only hope to find a place like that, or, no, you probably cannot even hope!

It made think of the Edward Hopper painting, "Nighthawks," which is also like a dream, but of an iconically bad night out — nowhere to go, no one to relate to at all: