Harland Miller: Man of Letters

Megan Newcome
Mar 5, 2013 1:10AM

Harland Miller is a writer's artist. Or an artist's writer. Or, both maybe. His paintings of re-imagined classic Penguin book covers have a swashbuckling and bawdy character that would've made the likes of Hemingway, Bukowski, and the other Miller chuckle.

Miller is also a writer, of the real book kind, having penned an acclaimed novel in 2001 called Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty, as well as being a self-professed Poe fanatic. But it's his collection of sardonic canvases – of well-worn, dog-eared paperbacks with titles like 'Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore', 'Don't Let the Bastards Cheer You Up', 'I'm So Fucking Hard, Love and Other Crimes' – that are the guiltiest of pulp pleasures.

Additional image: Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy, Whore, 2004

Megan Newcome