On Succession, art has nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with power and value

Many works of art have been featured in the HBO series Successionwhose finale airs Sunday, May 28, and in its promotional material, including everything from an anonymous work by Paul Gauguin in Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) safe in a Geneva freeport, to that of Peter Paul Rubens The tiger hunt (1615-1616) looming behind Roy and his four children in the show’s Season 1 poster.

The prominent inclusion of art served a variety of purposes over the series’ four seasons, ranging from role in portraying specific characters to foreshadowing plot twists. Often the works seen in the characters’ homes and offices are by lesser-known artists.

“We like to keep people guessing about the art in Logan Roy’s apartment,” says Stephen Carter, production designer for Succession. ” We kept [the art] less recognizable for not repeatedly drawing attention to the many scenes and seasons. He adds: “No doubt there are minor Picassos, a Matisse or two, etc. And a bunch of coins that [Logan Roy’s wife] Marsha’s dealer has been chosen.

Sometimes the design team opted for the types of work that are currently fashionable among “commercial decorators,” Carter says. Other times they “embrace a recognizable series of pieces—Warhols, for example—that are both recognizable and can invite interpretation”.

Carter adds that, “Like the media companies in our universe, we embrace real (Time And Forbes magazines, Bloomberg News, etc.) but Fox and CNN don’t seem to exist; we do something similar with art.

As for the allusion to the works of Gauguin in Logan Roy’s Freeport vault, Carter thinks that “it was the writers having fun”. Gauguin’s life and legacy have come under intense scrutiny in recent years, particularly with regard to his treatment of Polynesians, which can only make the presence of his works in Logan Roy’s collection more appropriate.

“There is a plausible backstory – Gauguin has a moment of reckoning with his exploitative dealings with teenage girls in Tahiti and yes, one could draw comparisons to Logan and his pack of wolves at [Brightstar] cruises,” says Carter. “At the end of the day, [the Gauguin reference is] more on setting up Karl’s joke that burning them for insurance money would be the dream, financially speaking.

And while it may seem that Gauguin’s tropically hued works are too vibrant to suit Roy’s austere taste, this disjunction is intentional.

“Throughout the series, I’ve positioned Logan as a kind of aesthetic black hole,” Carter says. “His art is no doubt chosen for him by a string of nervous curators and buyers, and if they get it wrong, they get fired. Or chosen by wives, same fate applicable.

He adds, “The siblings are also infected, so the immediate Roy family has tastes that feel very art-oriented and safe and magazine-ready. No unique personal investment in artistic choices. I think this approach quietly contributes to the spiritually hollow nature of the series.

It may also explain why some of the art Logan Roy owns is kept, talked about, but never seen in his townhouse – his art purchases are mostly about economic value, not appearance.

“I think Logan views older art movements as valuable because they’ve stood the test of time and proven their worth,” Carter says. “They’ve been in museums and institutions since before he made his billions. He probably doesn’t trust the latest trends – just like he can’t really trust his own kids – because they might just be BS at the end of the day. He can’t tell if they’re serious.

The painting by Rubens that appeared on one of the first posters, on the other hand, reflects “both a sense [of] the wealth and the violence and the struggle that goes on beneath the surface of the family,” Carter says. This work didn’t make it into the show, but was a good fit for the ad campaign where “you have to make things easy to read; make their point of view from the side of a passing bus,” he adds.

• The last episode of Succession airs on HBO on May 28