Hunter Biden’s artwork, the prices for which range between $75,000 and $500,000, are highly overpriced and indicate that buyers will be paying for the Biden last name, rather than the art itself, experts say.
Their assessments will likely add to what is a growing ethics problem for President Biden.
Three art critics and one art professor – Geoffrey Young, Ben Davis, Tabish Khan and John Ploff, respectively – told POLITICO that the prices for Hunter’s artwork are nowhere close to where they should be for a budding artist.
Young said the president’s son’s paintings were “better” than he thought they would be, but the price point is still much higher than it should be.
“Traditionally, young artists are a bargain, and if they begin to sustain a career, gallerists raise the prices incrementally, as they should,” Young told POLITICO.
“Paintings are only as valuable as what some customer will pay for ‘em… he’s complexly famous, but not yet for art,” he continued. “Guess people will pay for a known last name.”
Davis agreed that the astronomical prices for the younger Biden’s art come from his last name.
“For an emerging artist doing his first show, this would put Hunter Biden in the top, top tier of what was thinkable,” Davis said. “These are prices for an already successful artist.”
He also pointed out that Biden’s paintings are being sold at the same price point as established artists Dana Schultz, Alice Neel and Stanley Whitney, who recently sold works for $500,000.
“So that is the company that Hunter Biden’s art, which no one has seen, is keeping,” Davis remarked.
Davis added that there’s “a lot of bluff and buster and marketing” when it comes to art prices, noting that art dealers “lie about them all the time to inflate values.”
He also said that Biden’s dealer, Georges Berges, “may be bluffing and talking up Biden’s prices.”
“There’s no science to such things,” Davis said. “But it is absolutely, 100% certain that what is being sold is the Biden name and story.”
