Paintings
12 works
James McQueen Book Spines | Multi-colour | Portrait For Sale
James McQueen
Book Spines | Multi-colour | Portrait
122 × 183 cm
About this work
Book Spines | Multi-colour | Portrait is a large-scale work by James McQueen measuring 122 × 183 cm, in which the artist turns to one of his most beloved recurring motifs: the library shelf. In this portrait-format composition, stacked book spines are rendered in a riot of colour, each spine suggesting a distinct volume with its own title, colourway, and typographic character. The result is a work of joyous visual density that simultaneously evokes the pleasures of reading, collecting, and the cultural accumulation of a life spent among books. McQueen's interest in book spines speaks to a broader fascination with text as a visual element — the spine, after all, is the book reduced to its most essential typographic form. In this multi-colour version, the palette is rich and celebratory, the spines pressing against one another in a composition that feels abundant and alive. The portrait orientation gives the arrangement a vertical momentum that mirrors the act of scanning a real shelf from top to bottom. The Book Spines series represents McQueen at his most exuberant and visually generous. These works have become among his most recognised and sought-after, appealing both to collectors with a love of literature and to those drawn to the formal pleasures of colour, pattern, and composition. Large in scale and bold in execution, Book Spines | Multi-colour | Portrait transforms the intimate, private experience of the personal library into a vivid and commanding public artwork.
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About James McQueen
James McQueen Paintings for Sale | Guy Hepner, New York
James McQueen is a British artist born in 1977 whose paintings sit at the intersection of Pop sensibility, material obsession, and dry British wit. He works under a pseudonym, and his identity is secondary to the work — which is the point. What matters is what ends up on the canvas.
McQueen's paintings are built, not simply applied. He works in layers — paint over paint, colour over colour — then sands the surface back to expose what lies beneath, then seals it in lacquer. The result is a depth that photographs struggle to capture. These are surfaces you need to stand in front of.
His subject matter has ranged from reinterpreted Penguin paperback covers to politically charged commentary to the large-scale mixed-media Anthology works now available through Guy Hepner. Across all of it runs a consistent preoccupation: the visual language of mass culture, rendered monumental and unfamiliar by the seriousness of the craft brought to bear on it.
McQueen has shown extensively in London and is represented in significant private collections internationally.
Guy Hepner | 177 Tenth Avenue, New York