Art snobs won’t find much to love at Radiohead and Stanley Donwood’s exhibition – hooray for that

Thom Yorke (left) and Stanley Donwood with some of their artwork ready to go on display at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - (Julian Broad)

Famous pairings have yielded some of music’s most recognisable and celebrated artworks. Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground. Peter Blake and The Beatles. Storm Thorgerson and Pink Floyd. Arguably less ingrained in the public consciousness are Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood, who met as students at Exeter University, where they studied fine art and English literature and whose longstanding collaborations have appeared on the front of every album by Radiohead, Yorke and The Smile since 1995’s The Bends invoked that instantly iconic image of a CPR dummy’s lips parted in ecstasy.

A new exhibition at The Ashmolean in Oxford, where Radiohead formed and a stone’s throw from where they played their first gig, at the Jericho Tavern in 1987, explores Yorke and Donwood’s work over the past three decades, spanning album covers, etchings, unpublished drawings, and sketchbooks full of the frontman’s lyrical scribblings. It’s fascinating, and not just for Radiohead fans but for anyone intrigued by the interweaving of sonic and visual art forms.