My First Million
01:02:35 · Bill Perkins
[01:02:35] S0: mean, it's a it's a very unique piece in in American art, particularly because one, you know, when you say like, well, who was the African American da Vinci or or whatever? And the answer is no one because they were slaves. And so it wasn't until after slavery and the formation of families, and they started growing up where people can actually afford paintbrushes and have the time to actually paint. And so you kind of get your first generation of, like, masters, African American masters, and the narratives that they would paint about born in, like, the forties or fifties or second generation, depending on what you use is, 1910, nineteen twenties, and then forties. And so this artist was a football player. He was an artist in an athlete's body and started painting, and he was painting... And this particular painting was about a sugar shack, which he had passed growing up in the South. It's like a party house about black joy in the South during segregation, which is a uniquely American theme. Right? Like, you can still lay ice ice rink or whatever, but it's uniquely American. And not not necessarily from like, oh my gosh, slavery was bad or segregation was bad, but just like, you're just not gonna get that narrative. Right? It's like jazz is the the only original American art form. Like, this painting is very, very unique culturally by, like, the first or second generation masters, and it was featured on Marvin Marvin Gaye's album that won a Grammy, and it was on the opening or outro of Good Times, which Norman Lear was like kind of the first producer to put stories of young black families on TV back in the seventies. And so this is very culturally relevant, very historically significant, a narrative that's not going to be painted in China or anywhere else, etcetera, so it's uniquely American, and I was in love with it. I had seen it since I was a kid, and any black person in my age range knows about this painting, has seen this painting and other works by Barnes. And when it came up, John Arnold messaged me, sent me an email. He goes, hey. Isn't this the painting you've been looking for? Okay. I've been looking for it because there's two copies of it. One, it was painted. It was in the back of the artist's car. Marvin Gaye sees the painting, freaks out. He's like, can I have this? I must have this for my album.
01:04:55 · Bill Perkins, Sam Parr, Shaan Puri
And when the biggest music star of the time asks you for a painting and you're a struggling artist, you do what he says. So he changed the painting and painted on, you know, Marvin Gaye's thing, and it's on it's on, I think, his album called After the Dance. But that wasn't what... It wasn't about that. Right? So he went and made another copy of it. Okay? He painted another exact copy of it for what the painting was really about. And so I tried to buy that piece from Eddie Murphy and basically got crickets, you know, like, wouldn't wouldn't respond. And then I... John called me and goes, this is up, and I almost cried when I heard about it. And I was like, okay. I'm not gonna telephone auction this thing because what if the telephone goes down? Like, had all this nervousness. I'm gonna fly. It was the first live auction I've ever been to, and I flew to Sotheby's, and I stole that painting. You know? So, like, a lot of people focus on the price, and they're just like, oh, you paid this much. There was a one of four Warhol that went for a $100,000,000. [01:05:59] S2: What did you pay? I I don't know what you paid. [01:06:00] S0: Yeah. The total price was 15,000,000. [01:06:03] S1: Describe the auction battle.
01:06:03 · Shaan Puri, Bill Perkins
[01:06:03] S1: Describe the auction battle. [01:06:04] S0: It was it was chaos because they did some chicanery. So there's an evening auction and a and a day auction, and and the evening auction is particularly the more expensive works. Right? But this this had an estimate that did not fit the evening auction. Right? Like, an estimate of 250 to... It it was like... It was in a hundreds of thousand top million, right? Like a millions. And I was just like, you know, people were like, what what... Why the is this in the evening auction? But I... So I knew there were some players who who wanted to get this thing, but I figured like, okay. Oh, there's a bit of 3,000,000, Take it. Scare everybody off and walk out the building with this with this painting. And it just, like, was chaos. Like, seven... Like, everything was pretty standard. Like, you know you know, whatever it was. Andy Warhol, Pinwheel, do I have a bid here? Do I have a bid? This was like a trading pit. It was like trading places for the first five minutes. Then you can hear me yelling out, 2,000,000, and then touch 2,000,000, 3,000,000, 3,000,000, four... And it just goes crazy until we get to, like, around 7,000,000, and it's like three people, then two people, and then it's just I and this other bidder going back and forth on this painting. And you [01:07:18] S1: could see them. Right? You're you're there live. They're there live. You know,
01:07:18 · Shaan Puri, Bill Perkins, Sam Parr
[01:07:18] S1: could see them. Right? You're you're there live. They're there live. You know, [01:07:20] S0: the funny thing is the guy who was bidding against me was two seats ahead of me. It was empty row and he was right there. And it was just he and I going back and forth and me pausing and me thinking like, what is going on here? [01:07:33] S2: Who was he? [01:07:34] S0: I don't know. He was he was a art consultant, a a very respectable art consultant working for somebody who never revealed who the buyer was. The only thing that was odd, aside from me, you know, I talk... Is that during the middle of bidding, which, you know, bidders don't talk... You don't talk to each other, whatever, he turns around to me and goes, I'm not going to stop. And then I said to him, well, then I'm going to make you pay. And then, you know, people kind of like chuckled who heard all that, laughed, and then it kept going. And, you know, during the during the... Before the auction started, I told my wife, I said, listen, babe, don't worry about me if I faint or anything, just keep bidding. And it's a true story. I said, do not... And there was like a painting that went before and I was like, I should I should... This is really a good painting. I should buy this. I was like, nope. You need to save your money just in case. Thank god. Because I was way over the amount I was willing to pay for this before the auction started. [01:08:31] S1: Going going in, what did you think your what did you think your max was? [01:08:34] S0: Thought I I was gonna pay, like, 3 to $5,000,000. You know?
01:08:34 · Bill Perkins, Sam Parr, Shaan Puri
[01:08:34] S0: Thought I I was gonna pay, like, 3 to $5,000,000. You know? [01:08:37] S2: And it was what? Fifth... You said 15? [01:08:39] S0: 15 at the end. [01:08:41] S1: Did you... Were you... At the end, were were you wobbled? Were you were you shook a [01:08:46] S0: little bit, or you [01:08:47] S1: were like, I'm going. [01:08:47] S0: Was in I in... My eyes were whitering. I was I was so happy. And I was just like [01:08:52] S2: Do you feel... What what what do you feel like? You feel like a historian or something? Like, you're like like you're the steward of history? Like, what what... Why would... Did this... Is this so important that you have?
01:09:01 · Bill Perkins
[01:09:01] S0: Yeah. I mean, like, the role of the collector is to signal to future generations what is worth preserving. So what you see in museums, etcetera, were were the commissions of wealthy people back in the day or things that they collected. You you you may not be seeing the best art. Actually, statistically speaking, you probably are not seeing the best art. Right? Like, some of it was probably burned or it was in people's houses or or whatever and didn't make it or or didn't show. What you're seeing is is what prior people had signaled to future generations what was worth preserving. And so given that context of this piece, and the historical context I gave you of like American art, particularly African American art, there was just an arbitrage going on because of the perception, right? There's a lot of people that are like, oh, black guys should own it. And I'm like, no. Black guys should own it. The world should own it. A Russian billionaire should own it. But we get to steal this because people have these kind of like, you know, historical racism in the art community where museums would not collect African American art, and they would not put it in or not have it, and then now kind of that makeup period, that kind of like social stigma of, you know, who should own this art, whatever. It's it's stuck in even the black community. I'm like, you guys are idiots. Like, it's creating an arbitrage between the valuable things that should be signaled and preserved for future generations and what the market is paying. So I was ecstatic. I felt like, you know, I arbitrage the market. I I I I, like, I had made it. I had finally made it that I can actually own this painting that I used to watch on TV all the time. So I was I was super happy.