Last month, we reported that Hunter Biden’s first solo art show was coming soon and that his paintings were expected to sell for between $75,000 and half a million dollars each.
From the pieces that I was able to see, I found them mediocre, but the media gushed over Hunter’s newfound art hobby, professed his talent, and some “experts” claimed his work is actually good.
I wonder who they voted for in November, right?
Never mind the inflated prices and the whole thing about all the purchases being confidential.
Move along, nothing to see here!
But, seriously, how can we be sure that Hunter Biden’s artwork is worth what it’s said to be? Well, I’m no professional art critic, but Sebastian Smee is. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic for the Washington Post, and he says Hunter’s paintings aren’t all that great.
In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cillizza, Smee was asked outright: “Is Hunter Biden’s work any good, aesthetically speaking?”
“For me, not really,” Smee told him. “I’ve only seen it in reproduction, so I’m sure I’m missing a lot: texture, layering, detail. Parts of them look technically impressive. But the style is eclectic in a way that makes his work feel neither one thing nor another.”
“Most great artists, whatever style of art they make, have been trying to make art all their lives,” Smee added. “They are fully devoted to what they do. To me, Biden seems a bit of a dabbler.”
Smee assessed that the art seems to serve no purpose other than as a therapeutic exercise but insists that “if I were a museum curator, I would struggle to find compelling reasons to share it with the public.”
As for how the art world has reacted to Hunter Biden’s art, Smee says it’s garnered mostly “a shoulder shrug.”
“A few people probably sniff at the chance to make money from his notoriety. But for the most part, people with influence in the art world are looking at his work and thinking, ‘Nothing much to see here.'”
Smee ultimately described Hunter’s work as what you might find in a café. “You see a certain kind of art in coffee shops, and some of it is OK and a lot of it is bad, and sometimes it’s surprisingly good. But you wouldn’t, unless you were related to the artist, spend more than $1,000 on it.”
So there it is, by this Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic: Hunter’s artwork isn’t worth more than $1,000 a piece, yet the artwork is expected to fetch between $75,000 and half a million dollars. Oh yeah, and all sales are confidential. So what exactly are we supposed to believe is going on here? That this is all on the up-and-up? That the same Biden son who got a cushy board position at a Ukrainian energy company while his vice-president father was the Obama administration’s point man for Ukraine issues isn’t trying to sell access to his father again?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member