Yoko Ono might be best known as John Lennon's wife, but she has forged her own pioneering path as a multimedia artist, singer and songwriter — and remains a prominent peace activist.
Yoko Ono — the artist, musisican, peace activist in 2018Image: Jason Roberts/empics/picture alliance
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Yoko Ono's life has been indelibly tied to her third husband, John Lennon, and to his band the Beatles after many blamed her for the Fab Four's break-up.
But Yoko Ono has always been her own person, and has stamped her own distinctive mark on art and music for over 60 years.
Early conceptual art
The daughter of a wealthy Tokyo family, Ono moved to the US as a young woman and became part of New York's artistic avant-garde in the early 1960s.
One of her best-known early performances is 1964's "Cut Piece," in which the artist sat passively on stage in her best suit and allowed the audience to cut off her clothes with scissors.
It was a daring piece of participatory art that was soon echoed in the work of conceptual artist, Marina Abramovic.
Ono's artistic inspiration came partly through her involvement in the Fluxus movement in New York, including "Flux Film" avant-garde filmmaking.
Her most famous film from the period is 1966's "Four," which shows the naked buttocks of people drawn from the London intellectual scene as the subject passes the camera on a moving walkway.
Yoko Ono and John Lennon stage a "bed-in" for peace in 1969Image: Getty Images/Central Press
Yoko Ono has a wide range of influences from French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp to experimental composer John Cage — who she met in New York through Cage's student and Ono's first husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi.
But when Ono developed a high-pitched, screeching singing style — a feature of the Plastic Ono Band formed with John Lennon — she drew the ire of the music press, and the public.
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Meeting John Lennon
Yoko Ono met John Lennon at one of her exhibitions in London in 1966.
Two years later, they started having an affair, and Ono accompanied Lennon to the studio for the recording of the Beatles' "White Album" — breaking an agreement not to bring along female partners. Encouraged by Lennon, Ono is said to have interfered in the recording process.
The couple married in 1969. A year later, Paul McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles. John's relatiuonship with Ono had played a part in his decision, he said at the time.
Decades later in a TV interview with David Frost, McCartney conceded that Yoko Ono's constant presence at the band's studio recordings was not the reason for the breakup. But he did not deny in retrospect that he and the two other Beatles eyed Ono with suspicion.
Ono and Lennon's relationship at times came across as an art production, including the "bed-ins" for peace in a hotel bed and the eighteen-month "Lost Weekend" period, a marital time-out that Ono ordered.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono had their hair cut short in 1970 for an auction to benefit the Black Power organization in the UKImage: Bob Dear/AP/picture alliance
Distant relations with children
While Yoko Ono has remained aloof from the public eye, she has admitted in interviews that she had a a distant relationship with her son Sean Lennon from her marriage to John Lennon; and daughter Kyoko Chan Cox from her second marriage to film producer Anthony Cox.
Her first pregnancy was not planned and robbed her of her sense of freedom, she said. She left the girl with Cox after she started going out with John Lennon.
In 1971 Anthony Cox, who had joined a cult, went into hiding with the girl. It was not until the mid-1990s that Kyoko Chan Cox got in touch with her mother.
After Yoko Ono gave birth to Sean Lennon in 1975,John Lennon is said to have been the prime carer of their son in the following years until his murder in 1980.
Yoko Ono in 1982Image: Bandphoto/Photoshot/picture alliance
Art knows no boundaries
John Lennon and Yoko Ono had just returned from a studio recording session on December 8 that year when Mark David Chapman, an obsessive fan, shot Lennon dead.
It was in front of the Dakota Building in New York where Ono still lives today.
For Ono, art was life, and death, and in 1981 she placed a photo of her husband's blood-splattered glasses on the cover of her solo album, "Season of Glass."
In the decades since, her art works are still exhibited all over the world.
Most recently, the exhibition "War is Over! If You Want It — Tribute to Yoko Ono," was staged at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest.
This article was originally written in German.
Paul McCartney at 80
The former Beatle and Wings leader has been in the musical spotlight for six decades. At 80, Sir Paul McCartney remains one of the world's most popular stars.
Image: Joe Marino/newscom/picture alliance
Paul McCartney on tour at 80
The ex-Beatle turns 80 on June 18 and is still at the top of his game. On Thursday, he completed the "Got Back" North American tour, his first series of concerts since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. A week later, the living legend hits the stage again at the Glastonbury festival, becoming the oldest headliner. His set will include a "virtual duet" with his late bandmate, John Lennon.
Image: Joe Marino/newscom/picture alliance
A musical mind
Paul McCartney (shown here age 6 in front of his brother, Mike) was born in Liverpool in 1942. As a teenager, Paul was given a trumpet and encouraged to take music lessons by his father, who was a jazz musician. But the Beatle-to-be preferred to learn by ear and taught himself to play piano and guitar. Even though he became a songwriting legend, he never learned to read or transcribe sheet music.
Image: Hulton Archive/Keystone/Getty Images
Joining John Lennon
Paul McCartney and George Harrison knew each other as schoolmates. McCartney then met John Lennon at the second concert of the latter's band, the Quarrymen, in 1957. Shortly after, Lennon asked McCartney to join the group as a rhythm guitarist. He was 15 years old at the time. This photo is from around 1960, the year the Beatles officially formed.
Image: Hulton Archive/Keystone/Getty Images
Becoming the Beatles
The Beatles honed their performance skills on the stages of Hamburg clubs during a legendary residency in 1960. When bassist Stuart Sutcliffe decided to leave the Beatles to concentrate on his art a year later, McCartney reluctantly left his favored instrument, the guitar, to become the group's bass player. The Fab Four became complete after drummer Pete Best was replaced by Ringo Starr in 1962.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot
Both photogenic and talented
McCartney despised being labeled "the cute Beatle," since it implied he wasn't a serious musician — though his skills were well recognized. Photojournalist Harry Benson, who followed the band in 1964, described him as a photogenic "magnet": "You could take photos of the Beatles, but Paul McCartney had to be in them. A picture of the Beatles without Paul was not a picture of the Beatles."
Image: Harry Benson
A moment of introspection
Benson, who would also later follow McCartney with his band Wings, compiled his photos into the book "Paul," which was released by publisher Taschen in 2021 as a limited edition. "My favorite portraits of Paul from the Beatles period are the ones on the train from 'A Hard Day's Night,'" Benson said. "You see the self-contained Paul, private moments away from the insanity of 'Beatlemania.'"
Image: Harry Benson
Leading to the rooftop
Another recent release, Peter Jackson's documentary series "The Beatles: Get Back," gives fans incredible insight into McCartney's creative process as he attempts to fill the void created by their manager Brian Epstein's death in 1967. The series follows the band as they rehearse in January 1969 for an album, concert and film project, culminating in the legendary rooftop concert.
Image: Apple Corps Ltd
A prolific and eclectic songwriter
Paul McCartney and the Beatles were pioneers at combining a wide range of stylistic influences. After their early rock 'n' roll days, they incorporated, for instance, avant-garde, music hall and Indian classical music on their 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Many of McCartney's songs remain among the most covered in history, from "Blackbird" to "Yesterday."
Image: United Archives/kpa Publicity/picture alliance
Finding his own wings
The Beatles' breakup was a cumulative process due to different factors. McCartney announced in 1970 that he was leaving the iconic band. After overcoming depression, he started recording solo albums, also working with his wife, Linda, a keyboardist who would help form the core of McCartney's new band, Wings. The band released several albums over a decade, include "Band on the Run" (1973).
Image: Jack Kay/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
A prolific songwriter
Other hits followed as McCartney pursued his solo career, such as "Ebony and Ivory," a 1982 song recorded with Stevie Wonder and dealing with the theme of racial harmony. His 18th solo album, "McCartney III," released in December 2020, topped the UK albums charts. Sir Paul McCartney, or "Macca," as he is nicknamed, has released 26 studio albums and 111 singles as a solo artist and won 18 Grammys.
Image: Evening Standard/Getty Images
A humanitarian voice
Beyond music, McCartney also supports various humanitarian causes. A vegetarian since the late 70s, he contributes to raising awareness about animal rights and food, and also supports campaigns against poverty and land mines. He is shown here amid students marching against gun violence in New York City in 2018.
Image: Getty Images/S. Platt
Growing old together
John Lennon was shot dead in 1980; George Harrison died from lung cancer in 2001. Paul McCartney remains close to Ringo Starr, who is two years older than him. Among various common projects, the ex-Beatles recorded in 2019 a song written by John Lennon in the final year of his life, "Grow Old With Me." Even as octogenarians, they remain icons of pop music — and very rich stars.
