Rachel Owen

Owen was born in Cardiff, Wales.[1] She received a B.A. (Hons) in Italian and Fine Art (Painting), specialising in Printmaking, from the University of Exeter.[2] In the 1990s, she lived in Florence with two students and studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence, where she fell in love with Dante's work.[3] In 2001, Owen received a PhD from the University of London, where her research was on the illustrations in manuscripts of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.[4]

Owen was a lecturer in Italian with a focus on medieval Italian literature, where she examined illustration and its reception in Divine Comedy.[5] She taught art history and Dante studies for visiting students at the University of Oxford.[6]

Owen was also a fine-art printmaker[7] and a member of the Oxford Printmakers Co-operative.[8] She mixed photography with printmaking[4] and her work explored ideas of transformation using photographic screenprints.[9] Her artwork was used on the cover of the 1993 Radiohead single "Pop Is Dead".[10]

For 23 years, Owen was in a relationship with the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, whom she met while they were students at the University of Exeter.[11][12][13] She and Yorke had a son, Noah, born in 2001, and a daughter, Agnes, born in 2004.[14] Owen influenced the lyrics of Radiohead songs such as "I Might Be Wrong"[15] and "Optimistic".[16]

In 2012, Rolling Stone reported that Owen and Yorke were not married.[17] However, The Times later found that they had married in a secret ceremony in Oxfordshire in May 2003.[18] In August 2015, the couple announced they had separated amicably "after 23 highly creative and happy years".[19] Several critics believed the separation influenced the lyrics of Radiohead's 2016 album A Moon Shaped Pool.[20][21][22]

Owen died of cancer on 18 December 2016 at the age of 48.[13] She continued to teach Italian into her final months.[23] Radiohead dedicated the 2017 OKNOTOK reissue of their 1997 album OK Computer to her memory.[24]