Joe Biden’s enterprising son, Hunter, has a creative side. He’s an artist. Not just any artist and certainly not a starving one. He is . . .
America’s.
Greatest.
Living.
Artist.
It’s not unusual for people in the public eye to have an artsy side. Winston Churchill comes to mind. Angelina Jolie recently parted with this original Churchill for about $11 million which is probably more than she got when she parted with her last husband.
But, of course, the last husband probably wasn’t as original as Churchill. And besides, Churchill won WWII, while I’m guessing Jolie’s last husband lost WWIII.
Adolf Hitler was not half bad as an artist, as you can see from this painting, though of course as a world leader he was very, very bad — he was literally Donald Trump. (Attorney General Merrick Garland made me add the last phrase on penalty of the FBI designating me a domestic terrorist.)
Hitler’s not-half-bad paintings go for around $50,000. Fully-half-bad ones cost $100,000.
The works of these hobbyist artists typically have little commercial value during their lifetimes. I rather like George W. Bush’s paintings but they go for as little as $1,000. At that price, he’d make more money clearing brush on his ranch.
But then there’s Hunter Biden. Mr. Biden’s paintings go for something like $75,000 to $500,000. Each. After the Big Guy’s 10% cut, that’s still a pretty penny for a pretty ugly picture.
But give the Big Guy’s little guy credit. He’s a regular Renaissance Man. According to the Ukrainians who hired him for a sweet 6-figure gig as an advisor, he’s a shrewd oil tycoon. According to the Chinese, he’s an expert in Chinese business and other international trade. According to his, um, female friends, he’s an accomplished cinematographer who both acts and directs for fun and profit. And this energetic man still finds time to get high on coke and lose his laptops. By next year, I fully expect Hunter to be a chess Grandmaster and be giving cello duets with Yo Yo Ma. Call him Hu Hu Bi.
Joe says he’s very proud of Hunter. I’d be proud too if I were sharing a bank account with a relative who was raking in grafty millions to which I was entitled 10%, as Joe was with Hunter.
One of Hunter’s paintings is in the top image of this column. The other painting in that image is by TheAspenBeat, which has actually been offered a mid-5-figure sum for the same (but I don’t sell my paintings). I could get as much money as Hitler, with whom I’m often compared, for paintings that are perhaps equally not-half-bad. For not-half-bad paintings, that sum is not-half-bad, but it’s nothing like the not-at-all-bad half mil that Hunter’s masterpieces fetch.
I’ll let you figure out which painting is mine and which is Artiste Hunter’s. If you’re interested in paying a half mil for either one, I also have a bridge to Brooklyn that I’ll sell you.
Don’t forget to vote HERE for “Best Columnist” and “Mr. Aspen” in the annual Best of Aspen competition. You can vote as often as once a day. By way of background (and speaking of bullies) the liberal Aspen Times fired me in 2019 for having incompatible “values.” I got the last laugh the next year when I won “Best Columnist of Aspen” in their own competition. Let’s make it two years in a row and this time let’s add “Mr. Aspen” to the title. It’ll drive the Aspen lefties crazy(er)!
Meanwhile, sign up HERE for a free subscription to TheAspenBeat.
the Aspen beat 
I’ve never been more sick of rich elite’s children than I am now haha
I am the child of two rich elites. Yes, it took two working together to make me.
Bwahahhahaha
Hey Glenn, how much for that bridge?? I need a good tax write-off this year. Good work. Neat stuff.
de gustibus non est disputandum….but, yeah, half a mil for that crap?
Interesting art work. Top two items (which you have declined to identify as regard the artists in question) I like the one on the right. The one on the right is uninteresting. I really hope I haven’t offended you. FWIW, I DO like your blog content. Churchill’s piece is nice, as is Hitler’s but only from a technically precise perspective; otherwise it has no soul at all. GHWB’s stuff… Meh.
Whoops… It’s the one on the LEFT that’s uninteresting.
I don’t believe Hunter Biden is doing all the latest paintings I’ve seen on TV. The one on the left above is what I saw at the beginning, when they first announced he was going to be selling his art to unknown Chinese, I mean people.
Since then the art I’ve seen looks like it’s done by different artists. Too many styles for one person in my opinion. And it all looks like art that could be done quickly by good artists.
Joe’s role in his speeches is to read them from a teleprompter, to the best of his rapidly declining ability. He had little or nothing (probably nothing) to do with writing them.
Hunter’s role with his “art” is to sign it. Producing the “art” may be subcontracted out, or it may be generated by computer, but it’s the signature that brings in the money.
Google gave you away. The trick is to title the work so that it will garner big bucks.
How about, “Satiated Mosquito on my Windshield?”
The one on the left can be recreated with about 5 clicks within an art app. Printout probably the longest step after generation, depending on size and media.
OK, I confess. The one on the right is mine. It’s called “On the Cross.” I don’t pretend it’s any good; it’s not. As for the few of you who might disagree, it’s not for sale.
— GKB
Ah! The title increases my attention to your painting a hundred-fold. It also raises the question of whether “abstract” art can’t also be “representational” in some sense.
I think abstract art can be evocative. And it can be beautiful. It can even be communicative. But much of what passes for abstract art is none of that.
I personally find the Hunter Biden stuff, for example, to be simple and boring. It looks a little like my shower floor tile.
On the other hand, I don’t much like Jackson Pollock either. It’s way too messy — the goal should not be to cover every square inch, but to let the paint and the canvas play off one another. But the art world apparently does like him, so what do I know?
In Chinua Achebe’s opinion, “art for the sake of art is just another piece of deodorised dog shit” [sic].
Diego Rivera asserted that such art has no value as a social tool and is little more than a currency-like item available only to the rich.
Mao Zedong declared that there is no such thing as art that is detached from or independent of politics.
So this is what we are looking at — high-priced sewage from a mighty sewer.
First, who is Chinua Achebe, only a glorified Nigerian poet, to declaim about what art is?
Second, Diego Rivera is a second-rate “artist,” whose art is dedicatedly commiunistic–so why would we consider this nobody in declaiming on what art’s value is?
Third, Mao was a soul-less, blood-thirsty, animal, who had no idea of what art was attached to or detached from, who was just trying to force justification for something which was not helpful in promoting his insane ideas.
Yes, Bitter, why are decent American people not demanding a general investigation into the screamingly indecent, and obviously filthy, Biden business, this “high-priced sewage” which is only a small part of the Biden activities and mentality?
Don’t go all “ad hominem” on me, Luis. Yes, Rivera and Mao were Commies for whom art has value only as an instrument of state propaganda; but, just as a broken clock is right twice a day, their indictment of a certain kind of capitalist art scam rings true. Perhaps art SHOULD have some kind of “moral” and/or “social”content?
As for Achebe, “Things Fall Apart” is as good a portrait as any of cultural collapse, which is really what Glenn is talking about, is it not?
Glenn, this is a great column on a very interesting subject, prostitution within the Biden constitution. You did a very good job of showing that the Hunter Biden art fantasy is phony-baloney, but, hey, what should we expect knowing a liitle bit of Hunter’s spicy, let’s say filthy, past combined with Joe’s historical past senatorial/political “availability”?
Please do not let up on this or on any of your other ideas. Thank you.
Ha ha. One of your best.
Glenn:
When all is said and done, Hunter will be the most accomplished human of all time, just like his dad.
Very impressive retrospective. Thank you.