STORM FORCE

STORM THORGERSON, image guru behind Pink Floyd and countless other iconic album sleeves, talks to Jonathan Wingate

Storm Thorgerson creates the kind of surreal images you feel as much as you see, images which reveal themselves over time and can be simultaneously understood and misunderstood, crystal clear yet somehow utterly confusing. There appears to be an eternal sense of mystery to his work, which - aside from its sheer aesthetic beauty - is what makes Thorgerson’s art so ineffably memorable and hypnotic. As Keith Richards once famously observed of Mick Jagger, Storm Thorgerson “is an interesting bunch of guys”. Depending on your perspective, Thorgerson is either the archetypal artist, a lovable English eccentric, or simply mad as a box of frogs. After a few days spent in his company, your correspondent came to the eventual conclusion that he is a confusing but utterly charming combination of all three.

We meet for lunch in a restaurant beneath his North London studio, and from the moment we start to talk it becomes clear there is nothing remotely conventional about him. It may be lunchtime for him, but for everyone else it is now 5pm, and as the last light of the spring afternoon fades away and the waitresses start preparing the tables around us for the evening sitting, Thorgerson is just getting into his stride after an intense day spent putting the finishing touches to his latest album sleeve …

by Jonathan Wingate
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