Ernie Barnes’s iconic The Sugar Shack (1976) returns to the MFAH, on view in a special installation that also features Oh joy! Long time no see (2023) by Houston-based artist Alexis Pye.

As a teenager, Barnes (1938–2009) snuck into the Durham Armory, a North Carolina “juke joint” offering refuge and release to citizens in the segregated South of the Jim Crow era. He revisited this memory in the painting The Sugar Shack, which became a nationally celebrated icon when it was added to the end credits of the Good Times television series. “Music and dancing were an integral part of my identity,” Barnes said. “As a professional athlete, I was able to move about the country and explore every dive I could find and there was always a Sugar Shack.”

Pye (born 1995) recalls the impact that Good Times, along with leading character J.J.—who was an aspiring artist—and The Sugar Shack had on her imagination growing up. “Long before I knew what an artist was, or that I could be one, J.J. was the only model I had. That iconic painting has found its way into countless Black households [and] my work honors that inheritance. It’s about making art from what’s sacred in everyday life: movement, music, memory. It’s about the house party, the rhythm of community, and the people we become in those shared spaces. This is a continuation of a legacy, not just of image-making, but of living, dancing, and becoming through art.”

• The Sugar Shack
• Oh joy! Long time no see

• This exhibition is located on Level 2 of the Kinder Building.
• Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map

Good Times with Ernie Barnes and Alexis Pye / September 10, 2025—July 5, 2026