Why would anyone pay $500,000 for a painting by Hunter Biden?
Arwa Mahdawi
He’s not an established artist – or critically acclaimed. Yet his works are apparently being sold for surprising amounts
Tue 17 Aug 2021 12.17 EDT
It looks like the prodigal son is a painter now. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s child, has apparently been dabbling with paints for years. Now his hobby has turned serious: starting soon, you can pick up one of his colourful creations from a gallery in New York’s SoHo. It will cost you, though: the pieces are reportedly priced between $75,000 and $500,000.
Who parts with that much cash for the work of a new, not exactly critically acclaimed, painter? We may never know. Hunter’s new career raises obvious ethical issues for his father and, in an attempt to avoid accusations of influence peddling, the Biden administration has asked the gallerist to keep all information about the buyers and prices of Hunter’s work confidential. The gallery has also agreed to reject offers that seem suspiciously generous.
Even without those safeguards in place, I highly doubt Biden’s policies would be affected by sales of his son’s terrible paintings. (The New York Times generously described them as “leaning towards the surreal”, which is a polite way of saying: “Looks a bit like a Covid-stricken Mr Blobby vomited on a canvas.”) There are already plenty of other ways, after all, that you can “buy” influence in the US’s rich democracy. It is well established, for example, that you can donate your way to an ambassadorship. Still, the optics of Hunter’s pricey paintings aren’t great. In fact, the whole situation screams nepotism.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/17/why-would-anyone-pay-500000-for-a-painting-by-hunter-biden
