Hunter Biden was feeling himself as he visited The Post on Thursday night at a Manhattan gallery where he showed off his prized artwork.
The brawl-scarred first son embraced a Post reporter outside the Georges Berges gallery in Soho and invited him to an exclusive friends and family event ahead of an opening show of his latest paintings on Friday.
“Hey buddy, what’s your name? Who are you with?” the president’s son asked the journalist.
The reporter introduced himself as a journalist from The Post newspaper, and the artist, who was his first son, invited him in a friendly manner.
“Why don’t you go into the gallery at 6 o’clock and look without taking your phone out?” – asked Biden, putting his hand on the reporter’s shoulder and leading him to the door.
Biden, 52, deflected when asked by his father about how much money President Biden made from business deals with China and Ukraine.
Thursday’s soft opening showcased the younger Biden’s newest work, including abstract paintings on sheet metal depicting a flower and a live bird.
“I paint and wash. I painted it and washed it,” Biden told a group of viewers as he described how he created the layers and stains in his Haiku series.
Biden declined to describe his work to The Post and instead asked about the reporter and shook his hand — asking him to remember that he had a family when the paper wrote about his first son.
His art dealer, Berges, previously said that his art in the past has ranged from $75,000 for works on paper to half a million dollars for large paintings.
Hunter Biden in the gallery with George Burgess.
Some art critics say Biden’s artwork wouldn’t fetch the price it does without his name.
Biden’s art career has been a source of concern in the past, as ethics experts have warned that the sales are vulnerable to problems involving people trying to influence President Biden’s administration.
However, art critics praised Biden’s work, although some said the works would not fetch the same price if it were not for the name.
His turn to fine art was fueled by corrupt relations with countries such as China and Ukraine, as well as drug scandals.
Documents leaked from Biden’s laptop showed his father was due a 10 percent cut in 2017 and 2018 from a business deal involving a Chinese state-linked energy company that paid Joe’s brother James Biden $4.8 million.
President Biden has refused to even discuss his son’s business, saying he has never received payments from his family’s associates in China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine, despite reports that he interacted with them.
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