the few ways
1. go and get a commercial component like infragistics wingrid that fits your needs
2. search for something called "textimagecolumn", a some guy has implemented a (maybe not suitable) solution in this manner...
3. write your own custom column class, e.g. overwrite the paint event an paint cells yourself
4. wait till the microsoft guys come across this flaw
5. or die meanwhile
I have to struggle with this myself. It's a damn shame this clumsy, inconvenient implementation of the datagridview.