Artist’s Studio: Harland Miller

Olivia Cole meets Harland Miller, the painter known for his giant, polychromatic canvases.

In The Studio With Harland Miller

Harland Miller’s paintings have always been instantly recognisable. With the jolt of a familiar book cover design, and a title that doesn’t seem quite right but that makes you laugh, flinch and definitely look twice, his Penguin Classics and others in his ever-evolving ‘book jacket’ series greet us around the world like old friends.

His works combine comforting British design, the aftertaste of his witty one liners (inspired by the mordant temperament of his native Yorkshire) and the sometimes brutally discombobulating experiences of his years working around the world, in Berlin and in New York, before making his name in the London.

These days, he has gained many collectors and many more fans. George Michael hung two of his canvases at home (including, in the entrance of his house, Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore). Even Rishi Sunak owns a Harland Miller (Rags to Polyester – My Story… in case you’re wondering).

‘When I started the book jacket paintings, the way in which I painted them was to partially evoke the book itself; the feel of the book,’ explains Harland from his remote Norfolk studio, surrounded by books and the ephemera of a lifetime of collecting. ‘I always loved secondhand books; books that were like objects in the world, which had been owned by different people. If you opened them up there was sometimes a dedication on the fly leaf that was incredibly intimate – a little insight into somebody else’s life.’

The ‘International Lonely Guy’, as he nicknamed himself in his formative years, is now 60 but still looks suitably rock and roll. He starts every day swimming half a mile in the bracing North Sea. His home and studio was originally a friar’s house, where he and his family live as though still between Manhattan and the sand and ‘sequestered coast’ of Long Island, where he spent time in the 90s.

Miller’s universe is never going to be a minimalist world. His cavernous studio space includes barns and outbuildings where there’s room for different series to occupy their own physical spaces. As a young artist waiting to hit the big time and find a permanent home, he often carried his stuff around in a black bin bag, but here he has the luxury of space for layers and layers of collections and memories. Poignantly, he also has a stable filled with his late mother and father’s things, too. It’s a heart-breaking task to go through it all. I get a peek at new additions to his ‘Letter Painting’ series, exploring the tough landscape of a vast love and huge loss.

In the spring, the second chance he gives discarded old books by recreating them for the viewer, will take on an even richer symbolism, with an exhibition at York Art Gallery. The original was held in 2020, but closed after two weeks due to Covid lockdown. Miller found himself living out one of the tragic stories in the news, unable to do more than deliver care packages to his mother who was hospitalised.

Next year, the city will try again to celebrate this star of British art. Harland agreed to do the show once more, but was adamant it couldn’t be the same. Too much has changed in the few years since then. The elusiveness of meaningful connection, always a motif in his work, now seems an even more powerful subject for him. The second version of this show will reopen with a huge body of new work. If this wasn’t enough, he is also writing a highly anticipated real book of memoirs, which Harland Miller’s admirers everywhere will hanker to get hold of, and to hold on to as well. It already has the makings of a classic.

Exhibition from 14 March to 31 August 2025, yorkartgallery.org.uk

Harland Miller is represented by White Cube.