Art and ethics: Hunter Biden’s controversial new career
Hunter has embarked on new career as an artist and is preparing to hold first solo exhibition in October

“There is a long tradition of presidential relatives posing ethical challenges,” said The Washington Post, “but there has never been one quite like this.”
Joe Biden’s son Hunter has embarked on a new career as an artist and is preparing to hold his first solo exhibition in October, in a New York gallery. The art dealer handling the sales expects Biden’s pieces to fetch between $75,000 and $500,000 – a huge amount for an unknown painter with no formal training.
In an effort to prevent anyone using his art as “a conduit” to the first family, the White House has asked the gallery owner to keep the identity of buyers anonymous, even from Hunter, and to reject any unduly high bids. This, says the White House press secretary, will provide “a level of protection and transparency”. “Indeed,” said Miranda Devine in the New York Post. “So much transparency that no one is allowed to know anything.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The critics have responded to Hunter’s blown-ink abstractions with “a mixture of curiosity and derision”, said Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times. One called his work “Generic Post Zombie Formalism”; another characterised it as having “a hotel art aesthetic”. Clearly, no one would shell out big bucks for these paintings if the artist’s father “were not the most powerful man on the planet”.
It’s not the first time Hunter has profited from his connections, said Kevin D. Williamson in the National Review. He has admitted that he was given his previous $50,000-a-month board position with a Ukrainian energy company because “they saw my name as gold”. Biden should sell his art under a pseudonym or give the proceeds to charity.
Compared to the shameless nepotism of the Trump presidency, this is tame stuff, said Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post. But for a president who has promised “the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history”, it’s still unsatisfactory. To stave off corruption, the White House is “counting on the sole judgement of a gallery owner who stands to make a profit on the deal”. Let’s at least have real transparency, so we can see who’s paying him what.
Hunter, a former alcoholic and drug addict, has very publicly talked about his struggles with living in his father’s shadow, said Ben Davis on Artnet. He took up painting as therapy. If he doesn’t want his art also caught up in his father’s “political narrative”, there’s a simple solution: “don’t do this show now”.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Flying into danger
Feature America's air traffic control system is in crisis. Can it be fixed?
-
Time's up: The Democratic gerontocracy
Feature The Democratic party is losing key seats as they refuse to retire aging leaders
-
Frustrated Trump warns 'crazy' Putin
Feature Trump lashes out online after Putin launches his largest missile and drone attack on Ukraine
-
Antisemitism: What a young couple's murder tells us
Feature A Jewish couple was hunted on the street in a hate crime disguised as a political protest
-
The Chagos Islands: Starmer's 'lousy deal'
Talking Point The PM's adherence to 'legalism' has given Mauritius a 'gift from British taxpayers'
-
The Biden cover-up: a 'near-treasonous' conspiracy
Talking Point Using 'Trumpian' tactics, the former president's inner circle maintained a conspiracy of silence around his cognitive and physical decline
-
Deportations: Miller's threat to the courts
Feature The Trump administration is considering suspending habeas corpus to speed up deportations without due process
-
Asylum: Only white Afrikaners need apply
Feature Trump welcomes white Afrikaner farmers while shutting down the asylum program for non-white refugees