Abstract Expressionist’s paintings co-star in Golden Globe-nominated Netflix series The Beast in Me – The Art Newspaper

“Beet juice?” asks the real estate developer Nile Jarvis (played by Matthew Rhys) early into the first episode of Netflix’s recent thriller miniseries, The Beast in Me (2025), which is nominated for several Golden Globe Awards this weekend. Jarvis offers the eerily sanguine drink to his new neighbour, the novelist Agatha Wiggs (played by Claire Danes), who is visiting his home for the first time. “Lowers cholesterol, raises brain function. Tastes like shit.”

Behind Jarvis, and holding pride of place in a bespoke niche, is a painting by the first-generation Abstract Expressionist artist Norman Lewis, Promenade (1961). A picture light illuminates the raw canvas dotted with Lewis’s signature style of calligraphic forms, in this instance in red, blue and white, and the painting frames Jarvis’s face in several shots.

Even though Jarvis has just moved into this suburban mansion and his art collection is mostly boxed up and pushed against bare walls, Promenade is unpacked—one of the first things installed on the walls of his home office. In the stairwell leading up to the first floor, another Lewis canvas, Street Musicians (1948), is unboxed but also unhung. A more frenetic and layered composition, Street Musicians captures the energy of jazz.

Both paintings that appear in the series were high-resolution replicas, custom printed and framed after the production’s set design team reached a licensing agreement with the Norman Lewis Estate, which is exclusively represented by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York. The agreement stipulated that the replicas be marked as inauthentic on their versos and required proof of destruction after filming was complete. Both Lewis and the gallery are acknowledged in the credits.

“Those pictures are highly recognisable, signature works,” says halley k. harrisburg, director of the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. “The Norman Lewis Estate is also very agreeable and interested in having Norman’s work in both high and low kinds of projects, to have visibility. They love it, they get the same kind of ‘high’ that we do when seeing the work in a more mainstream, popular culture environment.”

The estate, via the gallery, has granted permission for Lewis paintings to appear onscreen on more than one occasion. Shannon Nallan, a designer who worked on The Beast in Me, had previously incorporated work by Lewis in the legal drama television series The Good Fight (2017-22). More recently, works by Lewis (and other prominent Black artists, including William H. Johnson and Charles White) cameoed in Spike Lee’s latest crime thriller, Highest 2 Lowest (2025), in the home of Denzel Washington’s character.

In the case of Lewis’s supporting role in The Beast in Me, the paintings are more than just an aesthetic selection. According to set decorator Michael Nallan, their inclusion was a “deliberate storytelling choice” that helped tell the character’s backstory. Jarvis was exposed to art by his ex-wife, a New York gallerist and serious art collector, who would have helped him develop a taste for historically significant American artists such as Lewis.

“Norman Lewis was selected specifically because his work signals depth, intelligence and cultural awareness without feeling ostentatious,” Nallan says. The set design team even considered whether the market values for Lewis made sense for Jarvis’s character, noting that one of his canvases, Promenade, sold in 2011 for $108,000, for example. “At those price points the choice feels authentic: important, museum-quality art that is attainable rather than ultra-blue-chip, and the pieces themselves subtly communicate Nile’s past life with Madison, his lingering connection to her world, and the kind of quiet, considered taste that aligns with his character.”

Another connection to Jarvis’s missing wife, Madison, comes in the form of the downtown gallery she runs, which the set decorators filled with works by contemporary artists. “These works weren’t chosen as decorative background,” Nallan says. “They functioned as atmospheric cues that reinforced the series’ tonal undercurrent—uneasy, slightly uncanny and emotionally charged.”

Several of the nine works by New York-based multimedia artist Matthew Uebbing that appear in the gallery scenes include birds, an extension of Madison’s interests as a devoted bird watcher. And the six works by British painter Graham Dean that hang in Madison’s gallery were chosen for their introspective quality, filled with vulnerable figures seemingly susceptible to threat.

“My paintings are known for their psychological and emotive presence,” says Dean, who was pleasantly surprised when the production team approached Bridgeman Images to license his work for the series. “When I saw the gallery scene, I noticed that they chose three of the large lying down figure series which had a visual echo.” (In the interest of avoiding spoilers, we will not expand on that echo.)

While The Beast in Me is nominated in the Best Television Limited Series, Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Limited Series and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Limited Series categories at the Golden Globes on Sunday (11 January), it already features an artistic all-star ensemble.

• The Beast in Me is available to stream on Netflix