PAUL MADONNA BIO

Short BIO


Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and best-selling author whose unique blend of drawing and storytelling has been heralded as an “all new art form.”

Paul is the creator of the series All Over Coffee, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years, and the author of seven books, including the Emit Hopper Mystery Series. His second book, Everything is its own reward, won the 2011 NCBA Award for best book, and his sixth, You Know Exactly, was a finalist for the 2022 Golden Poppy Book Awards. His latest book, The Commissions, a riveting mystery set between San Francisco and Amsterdam, was released in hardback in September 2023.

Paul’s work ranges from novels to cartoons to large-scale public murals and can be found internationally in print as well as in galleries and museums, including the Oakland Museum of California, the William Blake Association in France, and the San Francisco International Airport.

Paul was a founding editor for therumpus.net, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco, and frequently lectures on creative practice. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD magazine.


Extended BIO

Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and writer who combines drawing and fiction in a wide range of forms, from murals to novels.

Paul is the author of seven books, All Over Coffee (2007), Everything is its own reward (2011), On to the Next Dream (2017), Close Enough for the Angels (2017), Come to Light (2020), You Know Exactly (2022), and The Commissions (2023).

Paul is the creator of three series, All Over Coffee, Small Potatoes, and Quotable City, and the co-creator of the series Spirits of The City with writer Gary Kamiya, featured in the Nob Hill Gazette and collected in the best-selling book Spirits of San Francisco (2020).

Paul's drawings and stories have been published in books, newspapers, magazines, and literary journals, by notable publishers such as City Lights Books, Bloomsbury, Graphic Arts, West Margin Press, McSweeney’s, zyzzyva, Alta, the South China Morning Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and the Nob Hill Gazette.

Paul’s original drawings are exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, and have been included in the collections of institutions such as the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the William Blake Association in France.

Paul has worked with the San Francisco Arts Commission to produced several public art projects, including the Art on Market Street series and a 40 foot permanent glass installation for the San Francisco International Airport.

In addition to public art, Paul has produced a number of unique large-scale murals for private and professional commissions, including a 65 foot installation for Starbucks, a full-wall installation for Google, and several 40 foot site-specific murals for the restaurant chain Tacolicious.

Paul has worked with a number of corporate clients including Google, Starbucks, Tacolicious, Goorin Brothers, and Anchor Steam Brewery.

Paul holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD magazine. He was a founding editor for therumpus.net, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco, and lectures on creative practice at universities, libraries, and private organizations, including Stanford, Academy of Art, and California College of the Arts.

Paul's second book, Everything is its own reward, won the 2011 NCBA Award for best book, and his sixth book, You Know Exactly, was a finalist for the 2022 Golden Poppy Book Awards.

Paul is available for private commissions as well as speaking engagements and presentations.

CONTACT Paul at: studio AT paulmadonna DOT com






RECENT PRESS for Paul Madonna:

City Arts & Lectures, September, 2023   
Nob Hill Gazette, August, 2023   
San Francisco Examiner, Sunday, July 3, 2022   
KQED Profile, June 17, 2022




FEATURE: 40 foot permanent glass mural in SFO International Airport







VIDEO: Paul in his studio, produced by ArtSpan for their VAST series:




 
STORE
Shop for fine art prints and
   original drawings


LINKTREE
All Paul Madonna Links

EVENTS

SUNDAY, SEPT 3
   City Arts & Lectures
   KQED
   Interviewd by Steven Winn
   1pm, PST, USA
   Listen to the program


THURSDAY, SEPT 14
   Roll Over Easy
   BFF.FM
   With Early Bird & Sequoia
   8:45-9:30am, PST, USA
   Listen to the program


FRIDAY, SEPT 15
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Book Launch,
   Art Exhibition, and
   I-Didn’t-Die Party

   Ritual Cafe
   1026 Valencia Street
   San Francisco, CA
   7 - 9:30 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING TBD


THURSDAY, SEPT 21
   THE COMMISSIONS
   A conversation with Paul
   The Booksmith
   1727 Haight Street
   San Francisco, CA
   7 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


WEDNESDAY, SEPT 27
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Mrs Dalloway's Bookstore
   2904 College Ave
   Berkeley, CA
   7 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


THURSDAY, SEPT 28
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Lafayette Library
   3491 Mount Diablo Blvd
   Lafayette, CA
   2 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


SATURDAY, SEPT 30
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Book Passage
   51 Tamal Vista Blvd
   Corte Madera, CA
   6 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


SUNDAY, OCT 1
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Fabulosa Books
   489 Castro Street
   San Francisco, CA
   3:30 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


TUESDAY, OCT 3
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Bookshop West Portal
   80 W Portal Ave
   San Francisco, CA
   7 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


SATURDAY, OCT 7
   ArtSpan - Cheers to Art
    Tala Wine
   4625 Mission Street
   San Francisco, CA
   Time TBD
   EVENT LISTING TBD


OCT 13 & 14
   Workshop
   Escena University
   Mexico City, Mexico


WEDNESDAY, OCT 25
   THE COMMISSIONS
   Green Apple Books
   1231 9th Ave
   San Francisco, CA
   7 pm, PST, USA
   EVENT LISTING


Sat & Sun, Nov 18&19
   Open Studio
   Location forthcoming
   San Francisco, CA


MAILING LIST



PRAISE for Paul Madonna:


"Absolutely stunning… an all new art form."    

    — 7x7 Magazine


“The most gloriously insane mystery I've ever read”    

    — Peter Orner, Maggie Brown & Other Stories


“Blown away by Paul Madonna’s Come to Light. Blends a mystery novel with his usual stunning artwork. Highly recommended.”    

    — Mike Krieger, Co-founder of Instagram


"A book that can pique the interest of bibliophiles is as precious as a padparadscha sapphire. Here are some such gems."    

    — Publisher’s Weekly (Come to Light)


"Deeply satisfying… Madonna’s prose is magnificent"    

    — Foreword Reviews


“Paul Madonna has created a gripping and deeply mysterious novel about the nature of artistic creation and the wayward, confounding path of inspiration. It's a gorgeous book, with its words and pictures striking up a dialogue that's sharp, funny, strange, and the fuel for a page turner. I want everyone I know to read it so we can talk about how cool it is. ”    

    — Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil


"Miraculously exquisite... dreamy and surprisingly emotional."    

    — Salon.com


"Madonna captures snapshots in time as he explores the relationship between image and text... that's so gorgeously rendered in Madonna's precise yet fluid pen-and-ink style, it feels like it could be anywhere and everywhere."     

    — Publisher's Weekly


"Paul Madonna is a pen master. His work is difficult to categorize but that he was MAD magazine's first art intern may help explain his ability to capture human experience in its odd fullness."     

    — The Boston Globe


"Madonna's detailed but unfussy drawings bear the same human touch as so many of the buildings he depicts... a quality of life, a state of mind, predicated on the luxury of having an existence in which the only dramas to speak of are personal."     

    — Art Practical


"When his international images are paired with his sparse, poetic words, the effect is haunting. Though Madonna travels the globe, it's not the famous sites or wonders that catch his attention... and the experience of being in his world is mesmerizing." Top 11 books of 2011    

    — Oprah.com


“Check out Paul Madonna's surreal guide to the city's zeitgeist, a sketchbook of "sideways" cameos in ink-wash drawings of San Francisco's eccentric architecture and streetscapes, captioned with poetry, haiku or overheard conversations."     

    — The Australian


"Simply delightful. I really don't like much out there, I really don't, but On to the Next Dream I couldn't put down. It was sharp, clever, honest and maybe the funniest book on eviction ever written."

    — Bob Eckstein, New York Times bestselling author


"About detail, willful eccentricity, an almost rococo approach to line, and a steadfast devotion to art for its own sake, beauty as its own reward. Paul Madonna's work gives itself fully to all of these notions."     

    — Dave Eggers


"Madonna has created a kind of San Francisco Realism, details so absurd, cruel, and beautiful that they can only come from our infuriating home. If Charlie Kaufman squatted in an illegal sublet in Armistead Maupin's mind, this would be the lovely tenant."

    — Joshua Mohr, author of All This Life


"The book is fantastic. Of time and tenderness. Beautiful drawings. Beautiful text. Ethereal and serious at once. The book is its own reward."     

    — Maira Kalman, author of The Principles of Uncertainty


"Paul Madonna has not only pressed graphic fiction way beyond its present boundaries, he has created a new and stunning art form where the stand-alone brilliant visuals and the hauntingly human words synthesize into a pure and irreducible aesthetic vision. This book taught me something fundamental and true and beautiful about the ineffable thereness and thingness of life. Everything is its Own Rewardis a work of genius."     

    — Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain


“paul Madonna does amazing work, very precise but loose. He puts a lot of thought into waiting for just the right moment to stop looking around. These stripsare a reminder to stop now and then and admire a corner of a room, a window or a rooftop. There are lovely details everywhere, at any time, no matter where you live.”

    — Tony Millionaire, Maakies


“I can’t believe how Paul Madonna can make you feel so mighty to be human at one moment, and then so completely humbled the next. This is my favorite poetry book of the year.”

    — Beth Lisick


"Paul Madonna's On to the Next Dream is bleak, terrifying, hilarious and lovely."

    — MariNaomi, Turning Japanese


"For years I've been intrigued and charmed by Paul Madonna's careful and thoughtful drawings of overlooked nooks and by-ways of San Francisco. In his new book he now combines them with manic, delirious, and increasingly paranoid writings as he struggles with the all-consuming City dilemma of gentrification; of who came first, who gets to stay, which wave of usurpers is more 'real' and deserving than the next, and finally, what happens when someone decides it’s your turn to go. Beautiful and engaging."

    — Sandow Birk, visual artist


“This magnificent book is so many things—it’s illustrated with more than a hundred of Paul’s drawings from Thailand, Japan and China—and in-between those images is a killer literary novel. I have fallen really hard for this book, not only for its compelling characters, but in its themes of identity, love, the creative process, mental illness, escape, loss, how one moves through the world as an artist, and where ideas and creativity lurk.”

    — Melissa Cistaro, author of Pieces of my Mother

  COMMERCIAL:



Paul Madonna's Anchor Steam Beer label
Get a Limited Edition Print HERE




PAST EVENTS:


THURS, OCT 27, 2022
   Spirits of San Francisco
   Bookshop West Portal
   80 W Portal Ave
   SF, CA 94127
   7 PM, PST, USA
   REGISTER HERE


SAT & SUN, Oct 22-23
   11am - 6pm both days

   Open Studio
   SF, CA 94124


THURS, AUGUST 4, 2022
   All Over Coffee 3
   Mrs Dalloway's Bookstore
   2904 College Ave
   Berkeley, CA
   7 PM, PST, USA


THURS, JULY 21, 2022
   Spirits of San Francisco
   with Gary Kamiya
   Manny's, San Francisco
   6 PM, PST, USA


TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022
   All Over Coffee 3 Book Launch
   Booksmith, San Francisco
   7 PM, PST, USA


WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2020
   Paul Talks Writing and Drawing
   Alameda Free Library, San Francisco
   7 PM, PST, USA
   FREE, Virtual


THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   Metropolitan Club, San Francisco
   11:00 am, PST USA


TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   San Francisco Public Library + Total SF
   7:00 pm, PST USA


TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   The Battery, San Francisco
   6:00 pm, PST USA


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   West Portal
   6:00 pm, PST USA


TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   Commonwealth Club
   3:30 - 4:30 pm, PST USA


FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   in conversation with Gary Kamiya
   Copperfield's
   7:00 pm, PST USA


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2020
   COME TO LIGHT
   In conversation with Peter Orner
   Norwich Bookstore, Norwich, VT
   4:00pm, PST (7pm EST) USA


TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   Book release with Gary Kamiya
   City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA
   6:00 pm, PST USA


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020
   COME TO LIGHT
   In conversation with Dan Harder
   Mechanic's Institute, San Francisco, CA
   5:30 pm, PST USA


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2020
   ArtSpan SALON
   6:30 pm, PST USA


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2020
   COME TO LIGHT
   In conversation with Evan Karp
   Booksmith, San Francisco, CA
   6:00 pm, PST USA


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2020
   SPIRITS OF SAN FRANCISCO
   With Gary Kamiya
   California Independent Booksellers
   3:00 pm, PST USA


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2020
   OPEN STUDIO
   ArtSpan Annual Open Studios
   4 - 8 pm, PST USA


THURDAY, JULY 30, 2020
   LITQUAKE
   In Conversation with Peter Orner
   View recorded interview here
   6:00 pm



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018
   LITQUAKE
   Paul Madonna & Glen David Gold Are Drunk
   What Better Way to End the Festival?
   The Bindery
   1727 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA
   7:30 pm



FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2018
   EXHIBITION
   Association William Blake
   Lavardac, France


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2018
   START-UP BOOK FAIR
   Book signing
   1599 Tennessee St, San Francisco, CA
   2-3 pm



SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 2018
   EXHIBITION
   The Written Word
   Art inspired by books & writing
   Studio Gallery
   San Francisco
   August 2nd - 27th, 2018


SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2018
   GOORIN BROS
   Paul Madonna X Collection
   Goorin Bros Hat Shop
   1612 Stockton Street
   North Beach, San Francisco
   5 - 7 pm



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018
   Talk
   Comic Art Fest
   Burlingame Public Library
   Lane Room
   480 Primrose Road, Burlingame, CA
   7 pm



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2018
   Comic Art Fest
   San Mateo Library
   San Mateo, CA


TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2017
   Signing
   The Bindery (The Booksmith)
   1727 Haight St, San Francisco
   7-8 pm



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7th
   Castro Art Walk
   Local Take
   3979 17th St, San Francisco
   6-9 pm



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2017
   Reading & Signing
   Powell’s City of Books
   1005 W Burnside St, Portland, OR
   7:30 pm



SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2017
   Small Business Saturday
   Book Passage
   Ferry Building, #1, San Francisco, CA
   11am - 1pm



NOVEMBER 4, 2017
   In Conversation with Paul Buhle
   Wisconsin Book Festival
   Central Library
   201 W. Mifflin Street
   Madison, WI
   7:30 pm



SAT & SUN, OCT 21 & 22, 2017
   Open Studios
   3 Fish Studios
   4541 Irving Street, San Francisco, CA
   11:00 am - 6:00 pm



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2017
   Signing
   Northern California Independent
   Booksellers Association
   San Francisco, CA
   6:00 pm



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2017
   Distinguished Speaker Series
   Lafayette Library
   3491 Mt Diablo Blvd, Lafayette, CA
   1:00 pm



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2017
   Master Class
   Kepler's Books
   1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, CA
   7:00 - 8:30 pm



WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2017
   Reading & Signing
   Moe's Books
   2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA
   7:00 pm



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2017
   In conversation with Andy Weiner
   Book Passage
   51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera, CA
   7:00 pm



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2017
   Talk
   CalArts
   Valencia, CA
   1:00 pm



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2017
   Signing
   SFMOMA Bookstore
   151 3rd Street, San Francisco
   5:30 pm



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2017
   Book Release!
   The Booksmith, at the Bindery
   1727 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA
   6 - 8 pm