Harland Miller

b. 1964

British artist and writer Harland Miller was born in Yorkshire, England. In 1988 he graduated from the Chelsea School of Art, London, where he received both his BA and MA. Having previously lived and exhibited in New York, Berlin and New Orleans during the ‘80s and ‘90s, he now lives and works in London.

Elements of nostalgic imagery, language and social critique are embedded throughout Miller’s work. He rose to fame with his first novel Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty (Fourth Estate, 2000), and is perhaps best known for his large-scale, photo-realistic paintings of vintage Penguin Books covers that he started in 2001. They are titled with sardonic statements about life: Whitby – The Self Catering Years, Rags to Polyester – My Story, York, So Good They Named It Once, and more.

Inspired by the likes of Ed Ruscha and Robert Rauschenberg, Miller’s paintings have a soft colour palette and are faded in appearance. Similar to his Penguin covers, Immediate Relief…Coming Soon (2017) plays on covers of self-help manuals from the 1970s.

Miller’s work has been exhibited at: White Cube, London; York Art Gallery, UK (2020); Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; the Royal Academy of Arts, London; Somerset House, London (2016); Palacio Quintanar, Segovia (2015); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK (2009); ‘Summer Exhibition’, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2005, 2006, 2007); Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany (2004); and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1996).