In the early 90s, Stanley Donwood was \u201cat a loose end after university\u201d, hitching around Britain and making a\u00a0little money as a busking fire-breather. Fetching up in Oxford, he spotted a poster for a gig by\u00a0a band called On a Friday. He recognised the name: a friend he\u2019d met while studying at Exeter University\u2019s fine art department called Thom Yorke was the lead singer.<\/p>\n
So he called Yorke up. An initial plan for Donwood to do his fire-breathing routine as the band\u2019s support act was scuppered by the venue\u2019s nervous manager, but the pair kept in touch. Some time later, after On a Friday had changed their name to Radiohead<\/a>, Yorke called with a proposition. \u201cThey\u2019d done really well with Creep, which I hadn\u2019t heard, it wasn\u2019t my thing at all; I liked bleepy-bleepy, thumpy-thump music,\u201d says Donwood. \u201cBut he said: \u2018Our record sleeves are shit, do you want to come and have a go?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Their collaboration began in a fairly inauspicious, on-the-hoof style. For the 1994 EP My Iron Lung, they came up with the idea of videoing an actual iron lung and using a still from the ensuing footage. But having managed to inveigle access to Oxford\u2019s John Radcliffe hospital with a video camera, they discovered that an iron lung was just \u201ca gunmetal grey box \u2013 kind of horrific, but aesthetically very boring\u201d. On the plus side, while at the hospital, they spotted a resuscitation dummy: a\u00a0grainy still from the video they made\u00a0of it wound up on the cover of the 1995 album The Bends.<\/p>\n Loads of times, I think I\u2019ve run out of ideas. Then something happens and it\u2019s like: Wow!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thus began a collaboration that\u2019s lasted 31 years. Together, Donwood and Yorke have created the artwork for every Radiohead release since The Bends, as well as for Yorke\u2019s various other projects \u2013 solo albums, Atoms for\u00a0Peace and the Smile \u2013 and a series of books. Donwood has also staged solo exhibitions, published books, worked with author Robert Macfarlane and designed the posters for Glastonbury for more than 20 years. But there\u2019s something particularly striking about his Radiohead-adjacent collaborations with Yorke, which are\u00a0collected in a new exhibition at Oxford\u2019s Ashmolean Museum, This\u00a0Is\u00a0What You Get, its title taken from the lyrics of the band\u2019s 1997 single Karma Police. The show spans a\u00a0vast variety of mediums \u2013 from computer art to collage to oils to linocut \u2013 but invariably captures the\u00a0existential dread at the heart of\u00a0Radiohead\u2019s music.<\/p>\n Their working practices are unorthodox. Donwood usually moves into the studio where Radiohead are recording \u2013 or a nearby building, with an audio link to the studio \u2013 and creates art in direct response to what\u00a0they\u2019re making. It is, by his own account, a nerve-racking experience. \u201cLoads of times, I\u2019ve found myself in\u00a0these amazing places, with the brushes and the computer, everything I need, thinking: \u2018This is terrible, I\u2019ve\u00a0got nothing. Maybe I\u2019ve run out of\u00a0ideas. I\u2019m going to have to get a\u00a0job.\u2019\u00a0It\u2019s quite depressing. And then something just sort of happens and it\u2019s\u00a0like \u2018Wow!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Yorke then adds to the work. Sometimes he deliberately obscures what Donwood has done, as was the case with the artwork for 1997\u2019s OK Computer. Sometimes they paint on the same canvas simultaneously. \u201cWe\u00a0used to compete to see who could\u00a0finish [the artwork],\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve\u00a0got a lot less competitive, it\u2019s a\u00a0lot more collaborative now. We\u2019re just older, you know. More tired!\u201d<\/p>\n Everything in its right place: six works from the exhibitionStanley Donwood\u2019s Snowfall on House, 1997. Photograph: Courtesy of Stanley Donwood<\/p>\n Snowfall on House, 1997 Stanley Donwood\u2019s Get Out Before Saturday, 2000. Photograph: Courtesy of Stanley Donwood<\/p>\n Get Out Before Saturday, 2000 Pacific Coast, 2003 (main image) Stanley Donwood\u2019s Soken Fen, 2013. Photograph: Peter Stone\/Courtesy of Stanley Donwood<\/p>\n Soken Fen, 2013 skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Inside Saturday<\/p>\n The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Stanley Donwood\u2019s A Map of the New World, 2024. Photograph: Courtesy of Stanley Donwood<\/p>\n A Map of the New World, 2024 Stanley Donwood\u2019s Wall of Eyes, 2024. Photograph: Courtesy of Stanley Donwood<\/p>\n Wall of Eyes, 2024
<\/strong>\u201cThe figures and motorway from this OK Computer-era painting were blown-up photos Thom had taken on tour,\u201d says Donwood. \u201cAnd we had these textbooks from Oxfam. We scanned them, and were using this tablet whose stylus acted like an eraser \u2013 the rubbing out was really thin, not very good. When you cover up your mistakes in real life, you\u2019re never very good at it, so we wanted the mistakes to still be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cThat was from Kid A. We got canvases that were almost too big to comprehend. I rented a studio in Bath and Thom came down and we just painted. Some of those paintings have grit on them, or Artex \u2013 it\u2019s a coating used to cover up mistakes and damage, but it doesn\u2019t fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cRadiohead were supposed to record Hail to the Thief in two weeks in LA. We would drive to the studio on Hollywood Boulevard, and the streets of LA were very textural, with a lot of big writing designed to be noticed by people driving by, all in the same bold seven colours. So I bought those colours and started painting words. Of course, they didn\u2019t do the record in two weeks \u2013 my arse! \u2013 so we went back to rainy old England.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cMy initial idea for [Radiohead album] The King of Limbs was blurred photorealist paintings in oil, like Gerhard Richter, but it went very badly. Then Radiohead did a playthrough in this beautiful old barn. I thought: \u2018Woah, this music is about growth and it\u2019s organic.\u2019 I thought about the people who\u2019d built the barn with no machinery. I started painting these immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cThis isn\u2019t a thing for [Thom Yorke\u2019s other band] the Smile, but it\u2019s definitely in that world. It was done on an enormous printing press in Paris, a beautiful old place called Idem. I\u2019m such an idiot \u2013 I did it, then I found out it was two centimetres bigger than any standard cardboard, hardboard or chipboard backing, so I had to get it custom-made. It does your head in when you see it, because it\u2019s absolutely enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/strong>\u201cThom had been to this exhibition of maps and showed me the catalogue. There were these ones that an Arabic pirate had made: lovely rich colours, using tempera paint. So we made the Smile\u2019s Wall of Eyes artwork like that: maps that didn\u2019t look like maps, and then these paintings, which are almost like landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n