Essex-born artist and writer Stanley Donwood first met musician Thom Yorke when they were studying at the University of Exeter in the 1980s. Although they briefly lost touch after graduation, their paths crossed again in 1994, when Yorke asked Donwood to help him design a cover for , the second studio album of his up-and-coming rock band, .
Their creative partnership was a tremendous success, with Donwood going on to design each and every one of ’s subsequent album covers. In 2025, his creative process will be laid bare in a new art exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford titled “This is What You Get: Stanley Donwood, Radiohead, Thom Yorke,” which will run from 8 August 2025 until 11 January 2026.
The first large-scale, public gallery exhibition of its kind, “This is What You Get” will not only showcase the finished album covers themselves, but also the work that went into designing them, including unused compositions, unpublished drawings, and never-before-seen song lyrics taken directly from Donwood’s own sketchbooks.
When Donwood first started working with , he was working as an unpaid artist in an internet café out of the back of a bar. Although he didn’t have a computer, he volunteered to help Yorke put together a website for his band, something their record label—Parlophone—didn’t have much faith in at the time, considering the internet was still in its infancy.
Still, these kinds of initiatives paid off, as—according to music website Donwood’s role quickly evolved from “hired gun” into “an intrinsic part of the band” whose album covers are truly as “sweeping and complex as the records themselves.”
Anselm Kiefer is also getting a show at the Ashmolean next year. Installation view of “Anselm Kiefer: Fallen Angels.” Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio Ⓒ Anselm Kiefer.
Visitors of “This is What You Get” can expect to learn where Donwood gets his inspiration.
“The artwork for was done in various places, but also at Thom’s house” the artist told , taking its editors on a crash course through each album he worked on. “He used to live in this little semi-detached suburban house with a view of some trees that was very nice. But I was in a bit of a dark place with making that artwork…” The final artwork’s mood is shaped by a surreal, almost apocalyptic vision of bare sticks and white ash.
Donwood’s album covers have since become as iconic and instantly recognizable as Yorke’s music, with framed reproductions adorning the dorm room walls of musically inclined college students across the world.
“This is What You Get” is one of several upcoming exhibitions at the Ashmolean dedicated to figures who the museum says have made “groundbreaking contributions to art, music and our contemporary cultural landscape.” Also planned for 2025 is “Anselm Kiefer: Early Works,” which—as the title suggest—will dive into the formative years of German artist Anselm Kiefer, a leading voice in the New Symbolism and Neo-Expressionist movements whose paintings recount significant events from German history.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
