Dr. Rachel Owen was a Lecturer in Italian at Pembroke College, Oxford. She was also an internationally renowned artist – mixing photography and printmaking – and at the same time a scholar in medieval Italian literature. As Retained Lecturer, she taught Dante’s Divine Comedy to Pembroke’s finalists in Italian.

Dr. Owen was a graduate of The University of Exeter, where she studied Italian and Fine Art. She then moved to Royal Holloway, London, where she completed a PhD on the illustrations of the early manuscripts of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Students especially loved her annual guided tour to the manuscripts of The Divine Comedy in the Bodleian Library. ^[0]

Owen was the girlfriend of Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke for over 2 decades. The couple met in college. They have a son, Noah, and a daughter, Agnes, aged 15 and 12. The couple split in August 2015. The album Moon Shaped Pool is inspired by their breakup.

In December 2016, Owen died of cancer.

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