As Hunter Bidens go on sale, thicket awaits
White House tries to draw thick line on art by president’s son
NEW YORK — The Georges Berges Gallery has sat on a chic stretch of Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood for six years now, a relatively little-known newcomer in a New York art world.
This summer, however, it has unexpectedly become one of the most talked-about galleries in the nation, thanks to its plans to sell works by another relative newcomer to the art world: a fledgling artist who happens to be the son of the president of the United States.
The gallery is planning to sell 15 works by Hunter Biden and is asking as much as $500,000 apiece.
The prices — which are high for a novice artist — have raised questions in Washington about whether the works might attract buyers seeking to curry favor with the Biden White House.
In response, the administration has developed a set of ethics guidelines that call on the gallery to keep the identity of buyers and other details of the sales from both the artist and the administration.
Even though the art world is widely known for its secrecy and a lack of transparency, questions remain about how the arrangement will play out in practice.
Berges said that he believed the guidelines would work “just fine” and that the anonymity of buyers could be preserved even though Hunter Biden plans to attend the openings of his shows, which are set to take place in a private studio in Los Angeles next month and then at the Berges Gallery in New York in October.
“Obviously, artists have to attend their own opening — both openings will be ‘by invitation only’ and limited to friends and family,” Berges said in response to written questions. “There will be no discussion of pricing and sales — that will be handled by the gallery at other times.” (Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, said that neither the president nor first lady would attend the openings. The first lady, Jill Biden, has one of Hunter Biden’s pieces in her office.)
Berges said that he had been attracted to Biden’s work for “its mastery of color and form, and most importantly, its authenticity.”
He said that the struggles of Biden — who has spoken of grappling with drug addiction — come through in the work and that “I saw a lot of the positive qualities that have defined his life in his art — the heroic journey that comes from stumbling and falling and then rising up; his art is full of hope.”
The prices Berges has said he is seeking for Biden’s works — between $75,000 for works on paper and up to $500,000 for large-scale works — are high for a new artist, even one with a wellknown name, several art experts said.
“It’s an eyebrow-raiser,” said Cristin Tierney, a New York gallerist. “I have artists who have very real careers who might not sell that much in dollar terms cumulatively over 10 years.”
Experienced collectors are typically looking to buy pieces by artists whose work has been vetted by more established galleries, museums or the marketplace. Investor-oriented buyers also want paintings or sculptures that are likely to appreciate in value over time.
“I don’t think there has been any discussion in the market at all about Hunter Biden. He doesn’t seem to be on the radar of any collectors or market makers or specialists I’ve been speaking to,” said Edward Dolman, chief executive of Phillips auction house. “There is some value in celebrity, but at the end of the day, the quality of the art tends to dictate how the market relates to it.”
Asked about the prices, Berges said that he had been guided by his experience.
“Ultimately, the market will decide, but it’s my job to foster an artist’s career, and price is never the sole determinant of an artist’s value,” he said. “I believe Hunter’s art is special.”
Biden recently told the Nota Bene podcast that he had no role in determining the prices and no financial expectations, saltily dismissing critics. “I’d be amazed if my art had sold for $10,” he said, noting that prices are “completely subjective.”
But the sale has opened a debate about whether the president’s son is trying to make money off his last name and whether his art could be a window of influence into the Biden administration.
Hunter Biden’s efforts at a private career have already placed him under scrutiny, especially from his father’s political opponents.
Former President Donald Trump’s request for foreign help to investigate Hunter Biden’s role with a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, set Trump’s first impeachment in motion.
And Hunter Biden disclosed in December that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware was investigating his “tax affairs,” adding that he was confident that it would find he had acted “legally and appropriately.”
Some critics said there is still the appearance, at least, that he is benefiting financially because of his connection to the president and suggested that the Biden White House should do more, especially since it has vowed to set a far higher bar on ethics following the experience of the Trump years.
An investigation by The New York Times revealed that more than 200 companies, special interest groups and foreign governments patronized Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration.
“We just spent four years watching people dining at the Trump Hotel because that would effectively make the president happy,” said Jessica Tillipman, assistant dean for government procurement law at George Washington University Law School. “When you have a subjective field like art, where there is no norm when it comes to prices and a reputation for laundering money ... it calls for more transparency, not less.”
But the White House has said its arrangement to erect a wall of anonymity between the president and his son’s art career will ensure that collectors are not buying influence as well as art.
“I think it would be challenging for an anonymous person who we don’t know and Hunter Biden doesn’t know to have influence,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters last month at a news briefing. “So that’s a protection.”
Berges said the confidentiality of purchasers was standard and that “artists never know who the actual buyer of the work is for obvious reasons — one of them being so that the gallery isn’t bypassed in future sales.”
But, in fact, artists are often informed of — and may have a say in — where their work is placed.
The administration has said it is confident that the guidelines, which the White House Counsel’s Office helped develop, would prevent people from citing a purchase of Hunter Biden’s art as proof of ties to the administration.
Administration officials would be discouraged from ever working with any buyer who went public with information about a purchase, a person familiar with the plan said.
On the gallery’s website, Biden’s bio describes him as “a lawyer by profession” who “now devotes his career to the creative arts.”
It makes no mention of his father.