Pick Up a Penguin

When AmfAR held a Palm Beach charity gala to honour Tommy Hilfiger this March, it attracted a celeb-heavy crowd that included Sylvester Stallone and Christina Aguilera. But the biggest star of the night was undoubtedly Harland Miller, whose triptych Amour, Amour, More Amour stole the show at the evening’s charity auction, raising $500,000 (ten per cent of the entire auction sales). It was proof of the artist’s popularity with a starry crowd – if anymore was needed: Ed Sheeran regularly references the pieces he bought in interviews; Rachel Weisz agreed to be interviewed by the artist for anOther magazine (although, really, she was interviewing him); and Ronnie Wood, Jarvis Cocker and Gary Lineker turned up to support him at the launch of his monograph, In Shadows I Boogie, back in 2020.

Nothing but love

Amour, Amour, More Amour, the winning piece at AmfAR’s gala, was first created for Miller’s 2021 show at White Cube Paris, entitled The French Letter Paintings – a huge commercial success that garnered much publicity for the artist and ensured he continued to be at the forefront of buyer’s minds. Perhaps this is partly why his sales continue to sky-rocket – Back in January, a print titled Heroin, It’s What Your Right Arm’s For sold for nearly four times its high estimate at Phillips; then Sotheby’s March auction, Made In Britain, netted a flurry of fantastic results for the artist – notably, when I’ve Been Down But This Is Ridiculous netted £60,000 (three times its high estimate).

By the book

Established as a collector’s favourite, and with his prices continuing to rise even amid the world’s uncertainties, Miller’s success seems set to continue. This November, to celebrate the release of an updated version of Miller’s Phaidon monograph, White Cube Bermondsey will hold an exhibition of his work (for which you can expect an equally starry crowd on opening night). Meanwhile, glimmers of Miller’s return to his other love – writing – are surfacing. A just-released collection of short stories, Where My Feet Fall: Going for a Walk in Twenty Stories, includes an unlikely piece by Miller on walking the M11, and there are also rumours of his 2000 novel, Slow Down Arthur, Stick To Thirty, finally being made into a film based on a screenplay he wrote himself.

See available works by Harland Miller here. Or, if you would like to chat to us about the artist, please get in touch.