Art of Thom Yorke and Radiohead album covers to be exhibited for first time
The exhibition will include paintings, drawings and digital art from the 1980s onwards.
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Your support makes all the difference.The art of Radiohead singer Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, the artist behind the band’s album covers, will be featured together for the first time in a public exhibition.
The exhibition called This Is What You Get: Stanley Donwood, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, named after a lyric from the band’s song Karma Police, will feature more than 120 works by the musician and Donwood.
Essex-born artist Donwood has worked on all of Radiohead’s cover art from second album The Bends onwards, and Yorke’s other projects, including The Smile, made up of Yorke, Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner.
Also on display will be promotional band images and Yorke’s never-before-seen personal notebooks and sketchbooks.
Opening on August 8 2025 at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, close to where the band formed, the display will include paintings, drawings and digital art from the 1980s onwards, and will examine the complex relationship between visual art and music.
Entry to the event will be free for museum members and tickets for non-members will go on sale in April 2025.
Radiohead were formed at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire in 1985 and are best known for the albums Ok Computer, Pablo Honey and In Rainbows, as well as singles such as Creep, Paranoid Android and No Surprises.
Made up of Yorke, guitarist Greenwood, bass player Colin Greenwood, guitarist Ed O’Brien and drummer Philip Selway, they have had seven UK top 10 singles and six UK number one albums.
Donwood, 56, whose real name is Dan Rickwood, began working with Yorke after meeting him at the University of Exeter and has worked with the band since their third EP, My Iron Lung. He has also created artwork for Glastonbury Festival.
In 2001 they won a Grammy Award for the band’s album Amnesiac for Best Recording Package.