Harland Miller and his painting ‘York: So Good They Named It Once.’
Born in Yorkshire in 1964, Harland Miller is both an artist and an author who is fascinated by the relationship between words, colour, and images. He’s best known for his large-scale satirical paintings based on vintage Penguin book covers, bearing sardonic, absurd, or nostalgic titles and messages.
Miller has built up a formidable reputation for himself over the past two decades or so, with celebrities such as Ed Sheeran confessing themselves to be big fans of his work. The artist has also risen steadily in popularity in recent years, with prints accounting for 70% of his work sold at auction. Miller prints are especially sought-after in the United Kingdom, and the majority of them fetch prices in the region of £10,000 to £50,000 at auction.
Most of Miller’s prints are hand-finished screenprints based on his paintings, and he sometimes produces different versions of the same titles but in different colours. The artist enjoys the physicality of the laborious screen-printing process, and the variations between each of the finished products is undoubtedly part of their charm and popularity.
Below is a list of Harland Miller’s most sought after prints. If you own a Miller print, and you’d like to find out more about how much it’s worth, or how to sell it, get in touch with Mark Littler today.
This Is Where Its Fuckin At
This 2014 screenprint was sold by Forum Auction for £73,000 in July 2021. The text (reading “This Is Where Its Fuckin At – At Least It Used To Be”) is typical of Miller’s dry sense of humour and colourful language. The artist’s love for subverting popular phrases and playing with words shines through in this print, so it’s hardly surprising that it’s one of the most sought-after on today’s market.
When Miller has discussed the humour of his paintings, he’s stated it is partly inspired by the Northern “industrial town” he grew up in. The artist said: “People saw life as carnage, really. Just one long, ongoing difficulty, relieved here are there with humour, but black humour.” It is a type of humour that is inherent to Miller’s paintings, and it’s part of what makes them so undeniably popular.
This Is Where Its Fuckin At Sold By Forum Auctions in 2021
Love Saves The Day
Offering a more hopeful message than many other Harland Miller pieces, this screenprint was sold by Phillips in April 2022 for £61,499. It’s a reimagining of the Russian Review periodical that was published by Penguin in the 1940s. Instead of using the vibrant red of the original covers, though, Miller has opted for cerise pink instead. This choice isn’t coincidental; the artist is extremely interested in colour and its effect, as he believes that different colours change the way people read and understand text.
Love Saves The Day Sold By Phillips in 2022
I Am The One I’ve Been Waiting For
This 2012 screenprint was sold for £50,000 by Bonhams in April 2023. Based on the Penguin Plays editions, its message is one of strength, independence, and resilience, a thread that weaves throughout all of Miller’s paintings. Although much of the artist’s work is humorous and deliberately irreverent, there are also many pieces such as this that bear simple, surprisingly effective messages of hope and determination in the face of adversity.
I Am The One I’ve Been Waiting For Sold By Bonhams in 2023
Who Cares Wins
This pink silkscreen print from 2017 doubled its estimate of £20,000 to £25,000 when it was sold at auction for £50,000 by Sotheby’s in October 2017. In typical Miller style, the artist has carefully created the impression that the book is covered in coffee stains and has a split spine, showing that it’s been well-loved and frequently read.
Once again, this piece offers a hopeful message, and it’s another humorous Miller inversion of the popular phrase, ‘Who Dares Wins.’ By changing just one letter of the SAS motto, the words take on a completely new meaning, and one with, arguably, a deeper, more thoughtful message. Miller also created a limited edition of these prints in blue as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, with the proceeds of the sales going to a number of different charities.
Who Cares Wins Sold By Sothebys in 2017
Fuck Art, Let’s Dance & Fuck Dancing, Let’s Fuck
This pair of screenprints was sold for £38,000 in September 2021 by Forum Auction. Miller’s playful approach to language is on full display with these witty, self-referential titles, and they’re also exemplary of another enduring message found in his work: don’t take life too seriously.
Offensive language is intrinsic to the humour of many Miller paintings. The artist has stated he thinks humour is mostly regarded as “a no-no” in art, along with nostalgia, perhaps because “people don’t like to trust their emotions when they look at work,” and would prefer to have a “cerebral response” instead. He jokes that “emotions are not trustworthy, so we have to be careful and wary of them,” yet many of his pieces (including this pair of prints) leave the viewer with little choice but to smile.
Fuck Art, Let’s Dance & Fuck Dancing, Let’s Fuck Sold By Forum Auctions in 2021
Pipe Down Cunt
Miller’s irreverence is displayed in all its full glory in this 2013 hand finished screenprint, which was sold at by Phillips in December 2020 for £35,915. The artist said he painted it in for his father, who would not tolerate swearing in the house when Miller was growing up, and would say “pipe down” instead of shouting something such as “shut the fuck up”. However, after his father developed Alzheimer’s, his sensibilities began to crumble, and he started swearing frequently – “making up for lost time,” as Miller called it. The artist said he considers this painting an amalgamation of his father’s language in different stages of life, and, hopefully, something he’d like if he were around to see it.
Pipe Down Cunt Sold By Phillips in 2013
You Can Rely On Me, I’ll Always Let You Down
This 2011 print was sold by Tate Ward in March 2022 for £32,000, more than doubling its estimated £12,000 to £15,000. It reflects the tongue-in-cheek humour that is so characteristic of Miller’s work, and it’s a wonderful example of the battered, tattered appearance he manages to give his photorealistic Penguin cover paintings. In his large-scale canvases, this style is partly achieved by layering the paint, meaning Miller tends to work on several different pieces at once as he waits for the paint to dry on each one.
You Can Rely On Me, I’ll Always Let You Down Sold By Tate Ward in 2022
Narcissist Seeks Similar
This etching from 2021 was sold by Christie’s in July 2023 for £30,985. It is the perfect example of what Miller means when he talks about being drawn to the meeting of high and low culture. Miller said the title was inspired by seeing small ads in local newspapers, in which people advertised their search “for some form (often a very specific form) of companionship.” He said he was always intrigued by how the ads were written, and by the careful choice of words people used to describe themselves and the kind of person they were looking for.
Narcissist Seeks Similar Sold By Christie’s in 2023
