Lennon’s art shines on
Chris Serico • The Journal News • Oct. 27, 2009 • AP Photo/Chris Pizzello
Beatles legend John Lennon lived long enough to see himself become perhaps the greatest icon in rock music. But his widow, Yoko Ono, has been overseeing another part of his artistic legacy – one he never saw fully realized – in a way that will benefit underprivileged Port Chester residents this weekend.
The “We All Shine On” exhibition, a traveling collection of more than 100 visual art pieces created by Lennon from 1968 until his death in 1980, will make its first stop in Greenwich, Conn., from Friday to Sunday. Donations from the show benefit that town’s Neighbor to Neighbor branch, which provides clothing and emergency-food services to needy regional residents, including those who live in Port Chester.
As someone who studied art at Sarah Lawrence College, Ono couldn’t be prouder, saying Lennon would have been “very, very happy” not only about the touring success of the paintings and sketches he always wanted to showcase, but also the charities the tour has helped over the past 17 years.
“John and I believed in doing something for people, especially for the people who need to be helped,” says Ono, 76. “It’s just so good to focus on charity in each of the cities that we do these exhibitions.”
Born and raised in Japan, Ono relocated to Scarsdale, where her family had moved after her father, Eisuke, starting working for a New York bank. As a 20-year-old in 1953, she enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, where she studied art, music, writing and philosophy.
“It was kind of an exciting school, you know?” she says. “It was a real liberal school and they encouraged us to be creative.”
The school’s proximity to New York City’s art movement was a draw, and eventually Ono dropped out. “Well, because, I had enough,” she says with a laugh. “It was a different time, and I was one of those people who, probably a little bit earlier than the others, (decided) to just sort of drop out.”
She spent the next dozen years immersing herself in the art scene, devoting time to performance, mixed media and lecturing. Her art led to her first encounter with Lennon, who’d studied at the Liverpool Art Institute from 1957 to 1960. In 1966, while Ono was exhibiting “Painting To Hammer A Nail In” at the Indica Gallery in London, Lennon showed up to participate.
“That was so funny,” she says. “It just happened that way. There was something very interesting about that meeting. I just thought that he was a very attractive, elegant guy – elegant, was what I thought.”
Lennon started creating the artwork that appears on the current tour a year before his 1969 marriage to Ono. He kept painting and sketching until Dec. 8, 1980, when he was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman on a sidewalk in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Ono says she keeps her favorite Lennon artwork in New York, but is reluctant to pick a favorite among pieces in the show.
“If I select something, it is because I feel it is a very important piece of work of John’s that I should be sharing with people,” she adds. “I’m hands-on in selecting each one of them and if it doesn’t stir my feelings, I just won’t put it out there. I can always say that I’m in love with each one of them that I select. Especially because he’s not here, and I’m sentimental, but John’s such an incredible, incredible artist, so it’s hard not to be impressed with each one of them.”
The exhibition includes works from his Bag One series, a controversial collection of lithographs inspired by his honeymoon with Ono. Citing alleged obscenity, Scotland Yard officials famously seized several of these pieces in 1970.
The traveling collection also features Lennon’s song lyrics and sketches of their son, Sean, drawn near the end of Lennon’s life.
Ono grants autonomy to the Florida-based Legacy Productions to determine the beneficiaries of the traveling exhibition. Legacy accepted the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce’s recommendation of Neighbor to Neighbor, which will benefit this weekend from suggested door donations of $2 per person.
Rudy Siegel, a producer who has traveled with Legacy for the last seven years, says the thousands of art gallery observers who view the exhibit at each tour stop are taken aback by the size and breadth of Lennon’s artwork.
“We go through a lot of tissues,” he says. “It’s bittersweet for people because they see what he was able to put out in such a short lifespan, and they’re really saddened by what could have been, and that’s sad for people who lived through that era.”
Neighbor to Neighbor Executive Director Cathy Lynch is grateful for the support, adding that the need for clothing and food is greater than it has been in years.
“We’re thankful that they’re thinking about us in this time of need,” says Smith, who as a child brought her Beatles lunchbox to school every day. “We’re happy to partner with people who certainly have tremendous stature and certainly have name recognition.”
Ono says she doesn’t have long-term goals, instead trying “to do my best every day.” Her typical day in the life involves her own artistic contributions, which include a new album and paintings.
Artists, she says, have great potential well beyond the borders of white canvas.
“Through our communication, hopefully,” she adds, “we are going to heal this world.”
