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If You Ever Leave Me, I'm Coming With You

James McQueen returned to 'If You Ever Leave Me, I'm Coming With You' in February 2025 with five silkscreen colourways from Castle Fine Art, each an edition of 45. Red comes in a larger format, and the series also takes in framed sets of four and five, hand-embellished unique versions and the book of his 2023 London show of the same name.

All If You Ever Leave Me, I'm Coming With You Works By James McQueen (13)

Significance & Analysis

This is one of McQueen's most popular titles, and it has followed him from print to exhibition and back. It appeared as a print in July 2022 in 'Non-Fiction (2022)', it was the name of his November 2023 solo show at Halcyon Gallery, and in 2025 returned as a release of its own.

The line

The line is usually read as a playful, paradoxical declaration of love: an attachment so strong that one person cannot be without the other. McQueen sets it on a well-worn vintage paperback cover with his monkey insignia, a mischievous character he has said he borrowed from Banksy. In many of his paintings two monkeys hold hands, which he describes as an ode to his wife, his "partner in crime".

The show

'If You Ever Leave Me I'm Coming With You' ran at Halcyon Gallery, 148 New Bond Street, from 15 November 2023 to 7 January 2024. Its new paintings took Penguin Books covers as their starting point and showed them as they are today, stained, faded and annotated, rather than as first published. As McQueen puts it, a passed-down book "has had a life… Everyone who owns it, puts their little stamp on it."

The 2025 colourways

The 2025 release remastered the title in five colours, and its edition of 45 per colour is far smaller than the 95 and 195 of his earlier releases. Within a week several colours were running low, and by April selected titles had sold out.

What Sizes and Edition Sizes Do the 2025 Colourways Come In?

Released on 7 February 2025, the Blue, Orange, Pink and Yellow prints each measure 111.8 x 78.7 cm framed, and Red is the large edition at 154.9 x 106.7 cm framed. All five are mixed media and silkscreen, the standard colours on 410gsm Somerset Satin paper, in editions of 45 with artist's proofs and printer's proofs, and were sold framed. The Framed Set of Four (Blue, Orange, Pink and Yellow) and the Framed Set of Five (all five colours) were each issued in editions of 45.

How Is a Hand-Embellished Version Different From the Limited Edition?

Each hand-embellished version is a unique work rather than part of the edition of 45. The silkscreen is painted over by hand, so no two are alike and each can differ from the published image of its colour. They come in the same five colours, and each carries its own unique number.

What Is in the If You Ever Leave Me, I'm Coming With You Exhibition Book?

The book records the 2023 Halcyon Gallery show in more than 300 pages. It reproduces over 80 of McQueen's works, most of them new when the show opened, including canvases, installation sets and works on paper, with additional detail photography and an introductory essay on the artist. It measures about 30.6 x 24.5 cm.

How Does the 2025 Release Differ From the 2022 Print of This Title?

They are separate editions. The 2022 print is an edition of 95 on a sheet of about 101.6 x 67.3 cm, and was also sold in a set with 'Meet Me at the Bottom of the Bottle'. The 2025 prints come in five named colours, in editions of 45, and the colour appears in each title.