Hunter Biden, the scandal-plagued son of President Biden, has embraced a new life as a full-time artist and will get his paintings shown this fall in Los Angeles and New York City, where they are expected to fetch upwards of $1 million.
The younger Biden’s abstract paintings and collages, which sometimes resemble bacteria under a microscope, sometimes depict human body parts, will receive a private showing in Los Angeles this fall and later an exhibition in New York.
“I don’t paint from emotion or feeling, which I think are both very ephemeral,” Biden said in an interview with artnet.com published Monday. “For me, painting is much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth.”
His works of art sell for $75,000 for works on paper and $500,000 for large paintings, Biden’s Soho art dealer, Georges Berges told artnet.com.
Experts praised his pieces and predicted that some would sell for eye-popping amounts.
“I’m not impressed with modern art at all. But I was floored by that guy,’’ Alex Acevedo, 75, who owns the Alexander Gallery in Manhattan, told the New York Post, saying he has been in the art business since 1956.
“Anybody who buys it would be guaranteed instant profit,” Acevedo said. “He’s the president’s son. Everybody would want a piece of that. The provenance is impeccable.’’
Acevedo said he expects some of Biden’s pieces to sell for $1 million or higher, but he acknowledged that the pieces would probably go for around $25,000 to $100,000 if the Biden name were not attached to them.
One of Biden’s works, a green and pink abstract painting that resembles bacteria under a microscope, prompted the response from art consultant Martin Galindo that, “Oh, my God, that looks like Covid.”
“Honestly, I mean, from an aesthetic perspective, I don’t like it. But I’m sure he’s gonna do really well,” Galindo told the Post.
The president’s son, 51, has no formal art training but has been reportedly creating art since he was very young.
The lawyer, former lobbyist, and former drug addict has been dogged by high-profile political and personal scandals, some of them salacious.
In leaked emails from 2014 reported by the New York Post, Biden appears to try to leverage his influence with his father, who was vice president at the time and heavily involved in U.S. policy on Ukraine. Biden referenced his father in negotiations regarding his lucrative position on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.
In April, Biden released his new memoir, “Beautiful Things: A Memoir,” published by Simon and Schuster. The title is a reference to a phrase Biden’s late brother Beau used to say to him, which he said was also a testament “to the beautiful things that he thought my art was.”
Asked what his father thinks of his art, Biden responded, “My dad loves everything that I do, and so I’ll leave it at that.”