Peter Curzon, graphic designer and long term collaborator of Storm Thorgerson, undertook an exclusive tour of the exhibition Taken By Storm yesterday (July 18th). The exhibition features their work for Pink Floyd, Muse, The Cranberries, and a number of other top bands.

Taking place at the Gallery Artisan in Brisbane, Australia, this current version of Taken By Storm runs until August 1st, 2009. And, as you will see from the special report our Australian correspondent, John Elliott, has sent over along with a wide selection of pictures, it really is a show worth making the journey to see before it finishes. In particular, Peter was on fine form talking the crowd through various pieces, giving unique insights into them (see below).

And, with all the artworks on display for sale, it is the perfect opportunity to obtain a very high quality print, personally signed by Storm himself...

The talk itself lasted about an hour and covered most of the covers but centred on the ones he was involved in. He was very open to questions and answered them as he went along with quite a knowledgeable audience about Storm and the covers.

Amongst some of the detail that Peter revealed as he proceeded around the gallery:

• The "blue" car in the Peter Gabriel cover was actually a gold car and was touched up for the cover
• The Mars Volta cover (see tenth photo below) was the first that Storm did after returning from his stroke he suffered in October 2003
• He mentioned that the whole Pulse cover took years from when they first started working on it, to when it finally came out
• Whilst in Australia, he was talking to a number of bands about doing covers for them before heading off to see some friends in New Zealand
• The cover with three people underwater (the sixth picture below - the upper picture behind Peters head, and also seen as the cover of one of Storm's books) they were going to do with synchronised swimmers but they were too rigid and formed so they ended up using ballerinas instead
• The story behind the onion ladies picture is that both onions, and ladies, make you cry!
• Almost all the covers have an element of humour in them - in case you hadn't already realised this...
• The green DSOTM Monet cover was done for Roger's Magny Cours gig of 2006, because that originally was all he was going to do, and they subsequently did the purple version when the larger tour was announced - so the green version was just for the one gig
• They also did for Roger other versions of the DSOTM cover in various famous artists styles - Jackson Pollack and Roy Lichtenstein were mentioned - one of which appeared on the cover of Italian Rolling Stone
• The covers for the "Oh By The Way" Pink Floyd album cover box set were shot in the London studio with one set at each end of the studio

Please note, all pictures are copyright John Elliott for Brain-Damage.co.uk. No unauthorised use, please.