Harland
Miller

While he is now most famous for his prints and paintings, Harland Miller began his career as a writer. He published two novels in 2000: a novella titled First I Was Afraid, I Was Petrified, based on a family member’s obsessive compulsive disorder, and a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story set in 1980s Yorkshire called Slow Down Arthur, Stick To Thirty. Now, his fictional Penguin covers give him the 'pleasure to imagine a book I had already written and then painting it'.

Miller studied at Chelsea College of Art in London from 1984–88 and has lived in New York, Berlin and Paris. His earliest paintings were melodramatic scenes of men and women inspired by 'B-movie imagery' and Pulp Fiction book covers. The loneliness he felt while living in New York later inspired his painting International Lonely Guy.

While living in Paris, Miller found a box of old Penguin books in a second-hand bookshop. It was an 'eureka moment' and the start of his first Penguin paintings, inspired by the ’50s and ’60s paperback covers of the Penguin Classics collection. Miller allowed his imitations to take on a story of their own, exposing tattered edges, dog-eared pages and the occasional coffee-stain that brought them out of fiction and into reality.

Following a Writer in Residence position at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Boston in 2002, Miller curated his first major group exhibition in London, titled ‘You Dig The Tunnel, I’ll Hide The Soil’ at White Cube in 2008. Works by 34 artists featured in the show, including Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Jake and Dinos Chapman.

More exhibitions quickly followed. In 2009, Miller had a solo exhibition at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, titled ‘Don’t Let The Bastards Cheer You Up’. His first exhibition in Amsterdam took place in 2010: ‘I’ll Never Forget What I Can’t Remember’ at Reflex Amsterdam. In 2016, Miller had his first exhibition in Berlin, ‘Tonight We Make History (P.S. I Can’t Be There)’, then three years later saw his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.

In 2020 Miller held a solo exhibition at York Art Gallery. ‘York, So Good They Named It Once’, centred around Miller’s childhood memories of Yorkshire. 'I think the majority of people have a love-hate relationship with their hometown… and I think I do too, but just without the hate,' said the artist.

Miller has said that inspiration for his work can come from anywhere: the outdoors, the bus stop, a misheard conversation or the personal advert sections of newspapers – which informed Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore.

Visually, Miller cites Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko as influences. His more recent letter paintings were inspired by a writing style found in medieval manuscripts, the artist himself claiming, 'I brought a Pop Art sensibility to medieval manuscripts'.

Miller grew up with the miners’ strikes, the Yorkshire Ripper murders and bleak seaside holidays. The experiences later shaped his art and dark sense of humour.

Miller and his wife have a son called Blake. In an interview with The Yorkshire Post, the artist revealed that he started his Pelican Bad Weather series when his wife was pregnant. 'I am about to become a father, but my son is going to grow up somewhere completely different from where I did,' he recalled. He channelled this nostalgia for Yorkshire into his book covers, with titles like Whitby, The Self-Catering Years And Scarborough, Have Faith In Cod, inspired by his childhood holidays.

An original painting by Harland Miller can sell for £237,500 at auction, while a screen print can fetch up to £73,000.

Among Miller’s celebrity collectors is Ed Sheeran. During an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the pop star hinted he owned a version of Miller’s Pipe Down Cunt: 'I bought this guy called Harland Miller, who puts really offensive slogans on Penguin books, I’ve got pretty much the most offensive word you can have huge in my house. That’s something I really buzz off, I really like.'

Another famous collector is George Michael, who owned a version of Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore and Death, What’s In It For Me?. Meanwhile, singer Elton John reportedly hangs a version of International Lonely Guy in his bedroom. Supermodel Brooklyn Decker is also a self-declared Miller fan. 'I love the scale of his paintings, and his work just makes me laugh,' she said to Architectural Digest.

In addition to these star-studded collectors, Miller is good friends with his art dealer Jay Jopling, founder of White Cube gallery, and musician Jarvis Cocker.