“Beet juice?” asks the actual property developer Nile Jarvis (performed by Matthew Rhys) early into the primary episode of Netflix’s current thriller miniseries, The Beast in Me (2025), which is nominated for a number of Golden Globe Awards this weekend. Jarvis provides the eerily sanguine drink to his new neighbour, the novelist Agatha Wiggs (performed by Claire Danes), who’s visiting his house for the primary time. “Lowers ldl cholesterol, raises mind perform. Tastes like shit.”
Behind Jarvis, and holding satisfaction of place in a bespoke area of interest, is a portray by the first-generation Summary Expressionist artist Norman Lewis, Promenade (1961). An image gentle illuminates the uncooked canvas dotted with Lewis’s signature model of calligraphic kinds, on this occasion in crimson, blue and white, and the portray frames Jarvis’s face in a number of pictures.
Norman Lewis, Promenade, 1961 © Property of Norman Lewis, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, New York
Regardless that Jarvis has simply moved into this suburban mansion and his artwork assortment is usually boxed up and pushed towards naked partitions, Promenade is unpacked—one of many first issues put in on the partitions of his house workplace. Within the stairwell main as much as the primary flooring, one other Lewis canvas, Road Musicians (1948), is unboxed but in addition unhung. A extra frenetic and layered composition, Road Musicians captures the power of jazz.
Each work that seem within the collection have been high-resolution replicas, customized printed and framed after the manufacturing’s set design staff reached a licensing settlement with the Norman Lewis Property, which is completely represented by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York. The settlement stipulated that the replicas be marked as inauthentic on their versos and required proof of destruction after filming was full. Each Lewis and the gallery are acknowledged within the credit.
A scene from The Beast in Me that includes Norman Lewis’s Road Musicians (1948) Courtesy Netflix
“These photos are extremely recognisable, signature works,” says halley okay. harrisburg, director of the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. “The Norman Lewis Property can also be very agreeable and eager about having Norman’s work in each excessive and low sorts of tasks, to have visibility. They adore it, they get the identical type of ‘excessive’ that we do when seeing the work in a extra mainstream, widespread tradition setting.”
The property, by way of the gallery, has granted permission for Lewis work to look onscreen on multiple event. Shannon Nallan, a designer who labored on The Beast in Me, had beforehand included work by Lewis within the authorized drama tv collection The Good Battle (2017-22). Extra just lately, works by Lewis (and different outstanding Black artists, together with William H. Johnson and Charles White) cameoed in Spike Lee’s newest crime thriller, Highest 2 Lowest (2025), within the house of Denzel Washington’s character.
Norman Lewis, Road Musicians, 1948 © Property of Norman Lewis, Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, New York
Within the case of Lewis’s supporting position in The Beast in Me, the work are extra than simply an aesthetic choice. Based on set decorator Michael Nallan, their inclusion was a “deliberate storytelling selection” that helped inform the character’s backstory. Jarvis was uncovered to artwork by his ex-wife, a New York gallerist and critical artwork collector, who would have helped him develop a style for traditionally important American artists corresponding to Lewis.
“Norman Lewis was chosen particularly as a result of his work alerts depth, intelligence and cultural consciousness with out feeling ostentatious,” Nallan says. The set design staff even thought-about whether or not the market values for Lewis made sense for Jarvis’s character, noting that certainly one of his canvases, Promenade, offered in 2011 for $108,000, for instance. “At these value factors the selection feels genuine: necessary, museum-quality artwork that’s attainable relatively than ultra-blue-chip, and the items themselves subtly talk Nile’s previous life with Madison, his lingering connection to her world, and the type of quiet, thought-about style that aligns along with his character.”
Matthew Uebbing’s portray 10,000 Souls at As soon as options in scenes from The Beast in Me Courtesy the artist
One other connection to Jarvis’s lacking spouse, Madison, comes within the type of the downtown gallery she runs, which the set decorators stuffed with works by up to date artists. “These works weren’t chosen as ornamental background,” Nallan says. “They functioned as atmospheric cues that bolstered the collection’ tonal undercurrent—uneasy, barely uncanny and emotionally charged.”
A number of of the 9 works by New York-based multimedia artist Matthew Uebbing that seem within the gallery scenes embrace birds, an extension of Madison’s pursuits as a loyal fowl watcher. And the six works by British painter Graham Dean that cling in Madison’s gallery have been chosen for his or her introspective high quality, stuffed with susceptible figures seemingly prone to menace.
Graham Dean’s Haven 2 (2021) seems in scenes from The Beast in Me Courtesy the artist
“My work are recognized for his or her psychological and emotive presence,” says Dean, who was pleasantly stunned when the manufacturing staff approached Bridgeman Photographs to license his work for the collection. “After I noticed the gallery scene, I seen that they selected three of the big mendacity down determine collection which had a visible echo.” (Within the curiosity of avoiding spoilers, we won’t increase on that echo.)
Whereas The Beast in Me is nominated within the Finest Tv Restricted Collection, Finest Efficiency by a Feminine Actor in a Restricted Collection and Finest Efficiency by a Male Actor in a Restricted Collection classes on the Golden Globes on Sunday (11 January), it already options an inventive all-star ensemble.
The Beast in Me is offered to stream on Netflix
