Hunter Biden is starting a full-time career as an artist, and is selling his work for up to $500,000 a piece

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Hunter Biden is starting a full-time career as an artist, and is selling his work for up to $500,000 a piece
Joe Biden (right) is seen with his son, Hunter (left), in April 2016.Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA
  • Hunter Biden has become a full-time artist and has an upcoming show in New York, Artnet reported.
  • Biden has no formal training but has been making artwork since he was a child.
  • Prices for his artwork range from $75,000 for work on paper to $500,000 for large-scale paintings.
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Hunter Biden has embarked on a full-time career as an artist, and some of his paintings can cost six figures.

While speaking with Artnet, the lawyer and surviving son of President Joe Biden got candid about his creative ambitions.

His dealer, Georges Bergès, plans to host a private viewing for Biden in Los Angeles, California, this fall before an exhibition in New York, Artnet reported. Prices for the paintings - which are often layered with flashes of photography, geometric abstractions, and patterns - can start at $75,000 for works on paper.

Large-scale paintings can cost up to $500,000, Bergès told Artnet.

A post shared by Georges Bergès Gallery (@georgesbergesgallery)

In a statement, Bergès told Insider: "It is an honor that I am able to represent Hunter Biden. He is a wonderfully gifted talent and fine artist. He has garnered a following of collectors who appreciate and see the intrinsic value of his work."

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Biden, 51, has been painting since he was a young child, but he told Artnet that he's never had any formal training. In his new Los Angeles home, Biden reportedly converted a three-car garage into an art studio that includes a brick floor and skylight.

When painting, Biden told Artnet that he doesn't "fully envision what it will become. At least, it never turns out to be what I started off in my mind's eye at the outset."

Earlier this year, Biden published "Beautiful Things: A Memoir," in which he got candid about his substance use disorder and decades of addiction. In 2020, Biden told The New York Times that painting was keeping him "sane," adding, "for years, I wouldn't call myself an artist. Now I feel comfortable saying it."

But Biden, who made art throughout his father's presidential campaign, told Artnet that his art is not a form of therapy or an escape.

A post shared by Georges Bergès Gallery (@georgesbergesgallery)

"It's not a tool that I use to be able to, in any way, cope," Biden told the outlet. "It comes from a much deeper place. If you stand in front of a Rothko, the things that he evokes go far beyond the pain that Rothko was experiencing in his personal life at that moment."

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When asked for the inspiration behind his work, Biden said he didn't "paint from emotion or feeling, which I think are both very ephemeral."

"For me, painting is much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth," he told Artnet.

Biden added: "The universal truth is that everything is connected and that there's something that goes far beyond what is our five senses and that connects us all. The thing that really fascinates me is the connection between the macro and the micro, and how these patterns repeat themselves over and over."

He concluded the interview by confirming that his father did, in fact, love his artwork.

"My dad loves everything that I do, and so I'll leave it at that," Biden said.

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