Yoko Ono

Passions

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Traits

Family

Japanese conceptual artist, musician, designer, composer, poet and performer, the widow of ex-Beatle John Lennon. Ono was the daughter of a prominent Tokyo banking family and enjoyed an privileged, aristocratic childhood. When rumors of a Tokyo bombing began to spread during World War II, her parents send her to the countryside to keep her safe from attack. The family moved to Scarsdale, NY in 1951, where Ono studied art at Sarah Lawrence College for three years but left without a degree. Striking out on her own, she began creating the austere, experimental pieces that were to become central to her oeuvre while studying independently under artist John Cage. Reveling in the creative process, Ono began to show her avant-garde work at public exhibitions. Ono married Japanese musician Toshi Ichiyanagi in 1957, already well ensconced in a bohemian lifestyle that included casual affairs. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1964. Later that same year she married artist and filmmaker Tony Cox who won custody of their child, Kyoko, when the marriage officially ended in 1969. Ono then became an ardent member of the Fluxus movement, an international affiliation of radical artists that synthesized Dada, Duchamp, and John Cage and operated in the U.S. from 1960-1978 under the stewardship of artist George Maciunas. As a successful conceptual artist, she was exhibiting her work in London where she met married Beatle John Lennon in 1966 at her gallery show. It was love at first sight, and their private meeting after the show prompted Lennon's classic "Norwegian Wood." The sparks didn't fizzle out between the couple, and "other woman" Ono became the target of scathing criticism in the wake of Lennon's inevitable divorce and the break-up of the Beatles. Marrying Lennon in Gibraltar on 3/20/1969, Ono suddenly became world-famous. The couple began a crusade for peace, collaborating politically and musically by staging elaborate anti-war protests and recording "Give Peace a Chance," under the name "The Plastic Ono Band." They settled in New York and continued to record and perform their own music during the '70s, yet whenever Ono performed her decidedly experimental music on her own, she received negative reviews. Their son Sean was born10/09/1975, when Lennon retired to raise him full-time. Ono successfully supervised Lennon's loosely managed finances and handled all business matters of recording, royalties and revenue. The couple publicly emerged from all-consuming parenthood in 1980 with their album "Double Fantasy." When Lennon was assassinated on the sidewalk outside their Manhattan apartment building on 12/8/1980 at 10:50 PM EST, it sent shock waves across the planet.. Ono then withdrew to raise Sean as a single mom, putting her musical career on the shelf in the late '80s after the release of her albums "Starpeace," "Season of Glass," and "Rising." "It's silly to bring out something when there's no demand." After several reclusive years, Yoko Ono re-emerged. In 1989 the Whitney Museum mounted a retrospect of her conceptual art. She produced an off-Broadway musical, "New York Rock," that opened in April 1994. In 1996, 62 year old rock-and-roller Ono toured nationally with son Sean's band "IMA". She makes her home in New York with companion Sam Havadtoy. Link to Wikipedia biography