Hunter Biden has managed to rake in over $1.3 million for his artwork, according to internal art gallery documents obtained by Business Insider. Buyers of the First Son’s novice efforts include a single unidentified individual who purchased eleven pieces for a total of $875,000, a wealthy Los Angeles attorney and Biden confidant, and a Democrat donor friend who was appointed to a prestigious commission.
The $875,000 represents the majority of the $1,379,000 in receipts that Hunter Biden’s gallery received for his work, “with the gallery receiving a 40 percent to 45 percent commission,” Business Insider reported. That buyer reportedly lives outside New York City and purchased some of the younger Biden’s largest-format works, “including a 12-foot-long red-white-and-blue piece painted on sheet metal and entitled ‘Pandemonium.'”
Business Insider’s exclusive report was based on sales records from Hunter’s art dealer, the Georges Bergès Gallery of Manhattan.
The House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into Hunter Biden’s sketchy art career in January of 2023. In a letter to the Soho art gallery, Oversight Chairman James Comer(R-Ky.) argued that the gallery’s “arrangement with Hunter Biden raises serious ethical concerns and calls into question whether the Biden family is again selling access and influence.”
A prime example of this could be Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real-estate investor and philanthropist, also bought one of Hunter’s works, according to the Insider. Joe Biden announced the appointment of Naftali to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in July of 2022, eight months after Hunter Biden’s first art opening in NYC. The Commission is an agency of the Government of the United States and is charged with preserving European historical sites that are associated with the heritage of U.S. citizens.
Hirsh Naftali is influential in California Democratic circles and a significant Democratic donor who has given $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year. In 2022, she hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.
It was unclear when Naftali bought her Hunter artwork or how much she paid for it, but Bruce Weinstein, a professional ethicist and ethics trainer, told the Insider the timing of the purchase was significant. “If it was done after her appointment, and she likes the painting, it’s less of an issue,” he said. “It’s more of an issue if she’s deciding to buy it beforehand. Then it might be perceived as a quid pro quo.”
According to an email from Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, Hunter has previously bragged about getting a business associate on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the Insider reported.
In the past, Hunter Biden has privately suggested that he could arrange to have friends seated on the commission. Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden’s longtime business associate, was appointed to the same post by President Barack Obama in 2015. An email apparently from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop written that year suggests that he had sway over Schwerin’s appointment. “Eric asked me for one of these the day after the election in 2008,” he wrote to a cousin who had written inquiring about the possibility of a similar appointment for her mother.
A Biden administration official told Business Insider that Naftali was recommended for her preservation board post by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and that she didn’t buy the position through the art deal.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen who is entitled to have his own career as an artist,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, said. “We are not involved in his art sales, and any buyers of his art are not disclosed to the White House.”
Business Insider named a second buyer of Hunter Biden’s art: “Kevin Morris, a wealthy Los Angeles attorney who has become Biden’s confidant and financial backer.”
Morris’ ownership of Biden’s art was previously reported by The New York Times, though a person close to Morris suggested to the Times that the art may have been a gift, not a purchase. In fact, according to a person familiar with Hunter Biden’s account, Morris purchased the art through his gallery. In addition to collecting his work, Morris has lent Hunter Biden upward of $2 million, the Times reported, helping him pay off back taxes and avoid felony penalties under a June settlement with the Department of Justice. Instead, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges.
The Biden White House has repeatedly referred to “an absolute wall” between Joe Biden’s official duties and his family’s private business interests in response to questions about Hunter Biden’s suspicious career as an artist. The White House also claimed that buyers were carefully vetted and their identities were known only to the gallery, and not to Hunter Biden himself.
Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates told the Washington Post in July of 2021 that the buyers’ confidentiality would ensure the process is ethical. “The president has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example,” Bates said.
Hunter Biden’s novice paintings debuted with asking prices as high as $500,000— which is worth more than some of the works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Leonardo Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and Norman Rockwell, according to analysis by the Oversight Project.
Artist: Norman Rockwell
Title: Concert Trio
Sale Price: $482,500 pic.twitter.com/UcIYWNS3YP— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) July 25, 2023
Selling worthless art is considered political bribery in India and has resulted in jail time, the Oversight Project noted, adding that perhaps the FBI could learn something from the Indians.
Selling worthless art in India as part of political bribery has resulted in jail time. Maybe the @FBI can learn something from the Indians? pic.twitter.com/QCGrJSj3Sj
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) July 25, 2023
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