Radiohead beauty amplified at Oxford’s Ashmolean 

Round & About

This is What You Get, the new exhibition at the Ashmolean, featuring the work of Stanley Donwood, celebrates his iconic illustrations, over 30+ years, for Radiohead & Thom Yorke  

Nightmarish, bleak, dystopian and (ultimately) redemptive… But enough about my personal life. Let’s talk about the hotly anticipated Stanley Donwood exhibition at the Ashmolean!  

Fellow Radiohead fans, art lovers, and curious minds have been waiting for this all year. And it does not disappoint: the show invites you to lose yourself in the beautiful, chaotic visual universe of one of the UK’s most influential bands. This Is What You Get celebrates the three-decade collaboration between Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke — the creative force behind Radiohead’s iconic artwork. 

Running until 11th January, this is the first large-scale institutional show of its kind, featuring more than 180 original artworks. From early sketchbooks and rarely seen lyric fragments to enormous paintings and even woven tapestries, this immersive exhibition takes visitors deep into the visual imagination that’s shaped albums including OK Computer, Kid A, The Eraser and A Moon Shaped Pool. 

It all began in the early 1990s when Thom and Stanley – then students at Exeter University – first collaborated on the sleeve for My Iron Lung (inspired by a dummy found in the JR hospital basement). That partnership has evolved into a seamless blend of sound and vision that’s defined Radiohead’s creative identity ever since. 

Expect to see the haunting snowy landscapes of Kid A (inspired by war photography from the former Yugoslavia, the rude reds like wounds), the glitchy, analogue-style artwork of OK Computer (famously created without using the “undo” function), and the moving linocut from Thom’s solo album The Eraser, depicting a dark wave engulfing London landmarks. 

But this isn’t just a stroll through sleeve art nostalgia. Many pieces on display have never been seen by the public, including handwritten lyrics, trial artworks, and large-scale paintings made during the pandemic, when the pair began painting side by side. These latest works are vibrant, richly textured and surprisingly optimistic — a reflection, perhaps, of new beginnings. As befits a creative partnership that explores commercialism so cleverly, the merch in the gift shop (including old-school prints from letterpress king Richard Lawrence; richardlawrenceprinter.co.uk) are highly covetable, especially the tea set, shoppers! 

The exhibition’s title, This Is What You Get, is borrowed from a lyric in Radiohead’s Karma Police and, as curator Dr Lena Fritsch puts it, “captures the honesty, poetry, darkness and wit” of the duo’s visual storytelling. It’s a rare chance to get under the skin of Radiohead’s world of anxiety, beauty, and emotional depth.