Japanese artist and musician Yoko Ono has often been cited as a divisive figure in the history of The Beatles. She married John Lennon in March 1969, and collaborated with him on a series of recordings, films and artworks.
Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo on 18 February 1933. Her father Eisuke worked for the Yokohama Specie Bank, and her mother Isoko was from the wealthy Yasuda banking family.
Shortly after Ono's birth the family moved to San Francisco, where her father was transferred to. They returned to Japan in 1937, and Ono enrolled at the exclusive Gakushuin University.
During World War Two the family briefly moved to New York City, but soon returned to Japan. Following the bombings of 9 March 1945 they sought refuge in the Karuizawa mountain resort.
After the war the Ono family moved to Scarsdale, New York, and Yoko enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College. There she embraced the bohemian lifestyles of her fellow students, and was encouraged to develop her artistic aspirations.
Yoko Ono married composer Toshi Ichiyanagi in 1956, but the couple divorced in 1962 after living apart for several years. On 28 November 1962 she married Anthony Cox, an American film producer, jazz musician and art promoter, although the union was annulled on 1 March 1963 as Ono failed to finalise her divorce from Ichiyanagi.
Cox and Ono married properly on 6 June, and their daughter Kyoko Chan Cox was born on 8 August. The marriage was short-lived, with frequent conflict between the pair, although they stayed together for the sakes of their careers.
Ono was a member of Fluxus, an avant-garde art group inspired by Dada. However, she preferred to develop her own career, and was influenced by John Cage and La Monte Young. She explored conceptual and performance art forms.
In 1964 she performed Cut Piece at the Sogetsu Art Center in Tokyo. Ono walked on stage in a draped garment, and audience members were encouraged to cut pieces from it until she was naked. That same year she published Grapefruit, a set of instructions in book form to be completed in the mind of the reader.
Yoko Ono also became an experimental filmmaker, completing 16 pieces between 1964 and 1972. One of the most notorious was No. 4, better known as Bottoms, which consisted of a series of close-ups of people's backsides.
Event, to me, is not an assimilation of all the other arts as Happening seems to be, but an extrication from various sensory perceptions. It is not a get togetherness as most happenings are, but a dealing with oneself. Also it has no script as Happenings do, though it has something that starts it moving- the closest word for it may be a wish or hope.
After unblocking one's mind, by dispensing with visual, auditory and kinetic perception, what will come out of us? Would there be anything? I wonder. And my events are mostly spent in wonderment ... The painting method derives as far back as the time of the Second World War, when we had no food to eat, and my brother and I exchanged menus in the air.
Lecture at Wesleyan University, January 1966
Related articles:
- John Lennon meets Yoko Ono
- John Lennon and Yoko Ono launch art exhibition You Are Here
- Yoko Ono opens art installation in Berlin
- John Lennon artworks to go on show in Edinburgh
- Television: John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Frost On Saturday
Tittenhurst Park was not sold to Ringo outright by Lennon. The transaction was arranged by an Apple stock transfer which was used to lower John's 1974 taxable income in America. That is what multinational corporation owners do to lower income taxes in the country they are residing in.