Yoko Ono was born into power and wealth at 8:30 AM Tokyo time..on a snowy February 18, 1933 to her parents, Eisuke Ono and Isoko Yasuda Ono. Yoko was born at her great-grandmother's palatial estate overlooking Tokyo, with the emperor's compound located nearby. A staff of thirty servants attended to the family's every need.

Beginnings...

Yoko's paternal great-grandfather, Atsushi Saisho, was the descendant of a 9th Century emperor and a member of a powerful family which played a role in overthrowing the shogunate system in Japan.

Atsushi Saisho had no sons, but was devoted to his daughter, Tsuruko, who he sent to a Protestant college in Kobe to study English and music. She converted to Christianity, met Eijiro Ono, who was on the faculty of a Christian college in Kyoto and the couple eventually married. Eijiro had descended from a poor family of samarai warriors, but in order to survive, he had to give up the samurai's disdain of trade and go into business. He studied at the University of Michigan in 1890, joined the Bank of Japan in 1896 and eventually became the president of the Japan Industrial Bank. Yoko's father - Eisuke - was the third son of Tsuruko and Eijiro Ono.

Eisuke Ono earned two degrees from Tokyo University - one in economics, the other in mathematics. But his true love was music. Eisuke aspired to be a pianist and studied under an older brother's Russian-born wife, Anna, who was an accomplished violinist and pianist. Eisuke learned his lessons well and became a favorite performer at Karuizawa - a popular Japanese resort for the social elite. The tall, handsome Eisuke was considered a great catch for the unmarried ladies at the resort, who came to listen to him play. It was at Karuizawa that Yoko's mother met and fell in love with the talented Eisuke.

Yoko's mother came from a very wealthy family. Isoko's grandfather was Zenjiro Yasuda, the founder of the Yasuda Bank and head of one of Japan's richest business cartels. Zenjiro Yasuda had amassed a fortune of more than one-billion dollars before his death by assassination in 1921. Mr. Yasuda was killed by a right-wing activist when he refused to give a donation for a workers' hotel.

The pairing of the wealthy Isoko to the musician, Eisuke, was not held in high favor with Isoko's family. In fact, the only way Isoko's family would allow the marriage was if Eisuke would give up his plans for a musical career and join his in-laws in the banking field.

Following his marriage to the beautiful Isoko, Eisuke took a post with the Yokohama Specie Bank and moved into the elegant estate of his wife's grandparents.

Yoko has often described her early life in Tokyo as a lonely time. Her mother gave incredible parties for the upper class Tokyo elite, and while Yoko was well cared for, her mother paid little personal attention to her daughter. Yoko would sit, hidden from view, and watch as her mother entertained the fine ladies and gentlemen, dressed in glamorous Hollywood-style finery. Yoko developed a warm relationship with the tutors and servants, as well as spending a great deal of time alone, dreaming and inventing ways to entertain herself. She usually dined alone.



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Yoko: "I had every meal by myself, alone. I was told the meal was ready and went into the dining room, where there was a long table for me to eat at. My private tutor watched me silently, sitting on the chair beside me."
From Bungei Shunju, 1974


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Yoko's father did not see his first born until she was already walking, talking... and tap dancing. He had left Japan six weeks before her birth, having been transferred from his bank to their San Francisco office. Yoko didn't meet her father until Yoko and Isoko finally joined Eisuke in California in August of 1935.



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Yoko: "The first time I visited America was when I was two-and-a-half years old, and that was also the first time I met my father. I was sent to America to meet him and live with him. My family was sort of upper class in those days, in the '30s, and they were always taking these 16mm home movies. You know, Daddy and Yoko walking in San Francisco. I later got to see all those films, and what I saw was this sort of young guy who was not very happy about suddenly meeting his daughter. But I'm really excited in those films, tap dancing around like Shirley Temple. That was my first taste of America. I remember the Golden Gate Bridge, it was beautiful."

From The Soho News - December 3, 1980



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When Yoko was five, in the spring of 1937, she returned to Japan with her mother and younger brother Keisuke who was born in December of 1936. Japanese troops had invaded China and anti-Japanese sentiment was rising in the United States.

Yoko attended kindergarten and first grade in Japan. Mrs. Ono first sent her to the same school she had attended, but decided it wasn't quite good enough for Yoko. She then enrolled her in the Gakushuin (Peers' School) which was at the time only open to those with relatives in the imperial family or the House of Peers.

In early 1940 Isoko, Yoko and Keisuke rejoined Eisuke in the United States. Eisuke had been transferred again - this time to the bank's Manhattan office. Yoko attended public school near Long Island until it was time to set sail for Japan again as war was about to break out between Japan and the United States. Eisuke left the States several weeks later, transferred this time to the Hanoi office.

Yoko's second sibling - a sister, Setsuko - was born just two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941.

Yoko, her brother and sister were shielded from the horrors of the war in progress by their mother for as long as possible. But after an all-night air raid on March 9, 1945 which killed 83,000 citizens of Tokyo, Isoko decided it was time to leave the ravaged city for what had been promised by a friend as a more calm and hospitable countryside.

Isoko sent Yoko, Keisuke and Setsuko, ages 12, 8 and 3, along with the last remaining Ono servant to a small farming village south of Karuizawa. The villagers did not welcome the obviously wealthy and well-fed Onos with open arms. Mrs. Ono arrived several days later to find the so-called hospitable country people openly resentful and eager to take any and all valuables in exchange for scraps of food. The family was in the country long enough for the children to attend school there, and to go hungry as well. Yoko said later that she was always hungry, and the family was often reduced to begging for food door to door. There was more than hunger to deal with for Yoko, Keisuke and Setsuko, though. The farm children teased the city-bred Onos so badly that Yoko's brother finally dropped out of school. Yoko, on the other hand, stood her ground and wasn't afraid to give them a piece of her mind.

The Onos' stay in the country, which had lasted several months, ended after the Japanese surrendered on August 15, 1945. When the family returned to Tokyo, they discovered much of the city destroyed by the bombing and Japanese citizens, thin and starving, lined up awaiting food handouts.

Yoko's father, who hadn't been heard from by the family in a year, happily, turned out to be alive and well. In fact, he'd had the good fortune of being promoted to a high-ranking position at the bank in Hanoi. However, that good fortune made him a target of the post-War purging of powerful Japanese businessmen and industrialists from their positions. These men were blamed in part for helping to create and fund Japan's war machine. Mr. Ono rode out this storm while the political maneuvering went on, and when it was clear that the country needed the talents of these well-educated people, Mr. Ono was able to take a position at the newly formed Bank of Tokyo in 1947.

In the meantime..Yoko was back in Gakushuin, the Peers' School, attending classes with Emperor Hirohito's two sons - Akihito, the crown prince who was in the same class as Yoko - and his younger brother, Yoshi, who had a thing for Yoko.
















Yoko attended school after the war with Emperor Hirohito's two sons, Akihito, the crown prince who was in the same class as Yoko - and his younger brother, Yoshi. Yoshi was quite smitten with Yoko and spent as much time with her as the strict rules would allow. (The boys and the girls were separated in two different schools. ) Yoshi would venture over to the girls' school to discuss writing with Yoko, and Yoko in turn defied the rules and visited the boys' school - at least once.

Yoko's teenage years were spent studying philosphy and music theory. She also took a class in western opera music. She was asked by a teacher to join a local opera group but turned him down, preferring to sing her own compositions.

In high school, Yoko turned her creativity to the drama club, dominating the group by writing, directing and starring in the plays.

Yoko and her mother did not see eye to eye as Yoko became more interested in stretching the boundaries of traditional Japanese art and music. Yoko said her mother could be considered a "progressive woman" for her day, but "she preferred to see me as a successful woman in an existing society rather than as an underground artist."

In 1952, Yoko was the first female student to enter the philosophy course at Gakushuin University, but she dropped out after just two semesters and moved with her family to Scarsdale, New York. In the spring of her 20th year, she entered Sarah Lawrence College - the same college Linda McCartney attended.

Yoko left quite an impression with the teachers and students she encountered at Sarah Lawrence. Leah Binger Lenney told biographer Jerry Hopkins that she was in a writing class with Yoko.


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LENNEY: "She was very sophisticated, yet out came all this stuff! I remember the day that Yoko read one of her stories in class. I met with the teacher later that same day. She was clearly overwhelmed by Yoko and she spent the entire session talking about her, although it was supposed to be my tutorial. I remember her saying, 'I think Yoko will be a writer.'"




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One of Yoko's music teachers at Sarah Lawrence also has vivid memories of the soon-to-be-famous pupil. Meyer Kupferman told Hopkins that in his class in theory and sight-singing, where students were supposed to read music and sing from notes on paper, "She was particularly adept, the best in the class. She came to class with a tiny little metal ruler and insisted on making her own graph paper, which wasn't necessary. And then I would play something on the piano and the students would write it down. That's called dictation. She always transcribed it perfectly."


Yoko was living with her parents and feeling increasingly at odds with their lifestyle. Unable to communicate with her family, feeling constrained by the limitations set on composing music the classic way, Yoko began to drift away from Sarah Lawrence and was spending more time in Manhattan. There she met another Japanese born student who wanted to break free from university trained musicianship. The man who would become her first husband, Julliard student, Toshi Ichiyangi.

Yoko's parents were not happy with Yoko's choice of a suitor and threatened to disown her if she married Toshi. Yoko chose Toshi over her parents, they gave in and eventually sanctioned the marriage and the couple became part of the New York art scene.

In the late 1950's Yoko and Toshi began to perform their own artistic events. Yoko staged a series of now famous loft concerts on Chambers Street. John Cage was closely associated with Yoko and Toshi during this period. Yoko let Cage use the loft for his classes in experimental music composition. Toshi enrolled in the classes, while Yoko appeared as a guest. The classes were attended by the New York City art world elite: George Brecht, Geoge Segal, Richard Maxfield among them.

INSTRUCTIONS..

It was during this period that Yoko began creating her instructional art, such as 'Painting to Be Stepped On' which instructed people to put an empty canvas on the floor or in the street and wait for people to walk on it...and 'Pea Piece' which called for the participant to carry a bag of peas, leaving them behind one by one during the course of the day. (Yoko eventually put a collection of her instructional pieces together in a book titled Grapefruit which would later catch the attention of John Lennon.) Yoko also became friends with another artist, former Californian, LaMonte Young, and the two of them staged a six-month weekend series of loft events that became legendary in the art world.

(Photo: Yoko wraps LaMonte Young for Fluxus, 1965)

In the early 60's, Yoko's life was not exactly a bed of roses. Despite the fact that her parents were wealthy and living nearby in Scarsdale, she had cut herself off from that lifestyle, preferring to make it on her own. Toshi occasionally worked as an accompanist for extra money, and Yoko found extra work as a waitress. Yoko also was the manager of an apartment building and taught calligraphy, sumi painting, origami and Japanese folk music in New York's public schools during this "starving artist" period.

In 1961 Yoko and Toshi separated. Toshi returned to Japan to continue his career there. Yoko stayed behind in New York City and on November 24, made her famous appearance at the Carnegie Recital Hall (the poster Yoko made for that event is shown in part at the top of this page). The Recital Hall was used for more unique performances than the larger Carnegie Hall. The program featured "A Piece for Strawberries and Violin" and "A Grapefruit in the World of Park." During this performance, someone was assigned to flush a wired-for-sound toilet. Toilet flushings became standard procedure at happenings after that.

This event received public notice in The New York Times and the Village Voice, but the reviews were not positive. Yoko's parents got wind of the happenings and called Yoko to invite her to dinner at their palatial Scarsdale home. During this encounter, they urged her to go back home to Japan. After putting up some resistance to the idea, Yoko finally agreed - if only to see what would become of her marriage to Toshi. So in March of 1962 Yoko returned to Japan.














Fluxus
Manifesto:
"Purge the world
of dead art,
abstract art,
illusionistic art"











































Yoko moved back to Tokyo, toured with John Cage briefly (the critics weren't pleased) and spent another period of time dealing with intense loneliness. While Toshi went to parties with other artists he had become friends with, Yoko would stay behind and attend a movie or play by herself. Depression set in and Yoko became despondent. After an overdose of pills, she found herself in a hospital for the mentally ill. She was literally being held prisoner there, heavily sedated.

While this was happening, back in New York, Yoko's friend, LaMonte Young, was telling fellow-musician, Anthony Cox about Yoko. The stories he was hearing intrigued him, and he decided to visit Japan - partly to further his study of calligraphy and partly to meet the woman he'd heard so much about.

When Cox arrived in Japan, he discovered that Yoko was locked away in the hospital. Cox wrote in a church newsletter some years ago: "I found her to be heavily drugged. She could barely talk. By a strange coincidence, the drug they were giving her was one I had just recently read up on, and I found out that they were giving her an abnormally high dosage. " Toshi, who Yoko was still married to, asked Cox to help liberate Yoko from the prison-hospital. Cox agreed and, being a master of smooth-talking his way past obstacles, met with the director of the hospital, told him he was a colleague of Yoko's who wrote art criticism and that Yoko was a highly respected artist in New York. Cox threatened to write about how she was being treated in the hospital. Soon after, Yoko was released.

Toshi and Yoko's marriage had been over for some time, but they had not made the break legal yet. For a time, Toshi, Tony Cox and Yoko all lived together in Tokyo...an arrangement that was certain to fail. After one particularly unpleasant argument, Toshi and Yoko separated and although there was a reconcilation, the two drifted further apart. When Yoko became pregnant by Tony, Toshi filed for divorce and the marriage was officially ended.

On August 8, 1963, Kyoko Chan Cox was born.

Tony became Yoko's artistic assistant, and as friends from that period told Jerry Hopkins, he waited on Yoko hand and foot. It was during this time that it was decided to publish Yoko's instruction pieces in book form. The first printing of 500 copies of Grapefruit, which she planned to sell at future concerts and happenings, was delivered to their Tokyo apartment on July 4, 1964.

Yoko and Tony's relationship was a stormy one, and they separated in 1964. First Tony returned to the States, then in the fall of 1964, Yoko made the return trip to New York City as well.

FLUXUS
(Brief description by Peter Frank)

While Yoko was in Japan, Yoko's friend and colleague, George Maciunas and his group of NYC artists had acquired the name Fluxus. Literally translated from Latin, the name means "insistent change, or flux." There are also definitions dealing with purging the bowels, which Maciunas refers to in his Fluxus Manifesto. Maciunas called the Fluxus movement "a fusion of Spike Jones, vaudeville, gag, children's games and Duchamp." Whatever it was, it was already in flux by the time Yoko arrived back in NYC. Some of the members were unhappy with Maciunas' pro-Communist politics and the group was splintering.



Clive Phillpot, in a piece about Maciunas in FLUXUS: Selections From the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection (image left) wrote that even though Maciunas himself referred to the years 1963-1968 as the "Flux Golden Age," Fluxus did not come to an end until the death of Maciunas in 1978.



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Yoko On Fluxus:

Fluxus is Flux: the act of continuous flow and change. During the exhibition, do not let the artists' statements about Fluxus stay on the wall like words carved on stone. Paint over the wall with the color you like. Keep painting." YO 96

Written for Prima fest di un altro mondo, 1996
From YES Yoko Ono Chapter,
Yoko Ono and Fluxus by Jon Hendricks

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YOKO, TONY AND KYOKO IN NEW YORK

Yoko reunited with Tony Cox and while he stayed home and took care of Kyoko, Yoko became her own promotions agent. She was booked into the Carnegie Recital Hall on March 21, 1965 to perform some of her new pieces. It was at this event, that Yoko performed "Cut Piece" - the rather shocking interactive performance during which Yoko sits on the stage with scissors in outstretched hands, and invites audience members to come onstage and cut pieces of her clothing off.

Yoko was again living on the poverty level - the family would move to a different apartment every few months. "Bag Piece" was created during this time and Yoko and Tony also opened a conceptual art gallery they called the IsReal Gallery. The concept for "Bottoms" was also dreamed up in the mid-60's.

In early September 1966 Yoko was invited to London for the Destruction in Art Symposium. Yoko's concept art received great reviews by The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post. The Financial Times called her work "uplifting." Yoko's art became a big hit in England, and her association with Barry Miles, one of the DIA's organizers and part owner of the Indica Gallery with John Dunbar, is what eventually led to her first encounter with John Lennon. John and other musicians of the era were regular customers at the gallery.

Because of her burgeoning popularity, Yoko was given free rein to put on any type of show she wished at the Indica. Her show there in November of 1966 was spread over two floors and featured many of the pieces that have become so familiar to Yoko fans.

On November 9, John arrived at the gallery with his friend, Terry Doran. The two were greeted by Dunbar, then left to look around. John stopped at a pedestal and picked up "Box of Smile." When he looked in and saw his own face looking back at him, he did smile.

Then he found the white ladder. On the ceiling he could see only a white dot on a black canvas, with a magnifying glass hanging from a chain nearby. John told Rolling Stone years later, "I climbed the ladder, looked through the spy glass, and in tiny letters it said, 'Yes.' So it was positive. I felt relieved. I was very impressed."



John and Yoko would not get together for several more months, during which time, Tony and Yoko were creating interest in the British press and completing Bottoms. The film features the naked buttocks of 365 friends, associates and volunteers who answered an ad in a magazine.

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Yoko on the Bottoms Concept:

"People's behinds have right and left and top and bottom. And each part moves separately. I thought it would be visually interesting to film close-up. Conventional movies have a background and part of the picture moves. In other words, there's always a stationary part in it. If you have close-ups of bottoms, the whole picture should move. Moreover, you can't control how your bottom moves, unlike your face, regardless of your intelligence. Cabinet ministers and laborers, beautiful women and ugly women are all equal when they take their clothes off. Their bottoms all have innocent looks beyond their control. I put an ad n the paper saying, 'Intelligent-looking bottoms wanted for filming. Possessors of unintelligent-looking ones need not apply.' "



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More events followed the Bottoms debut, including one of the most famous: Yoko, wrapped in cloth, tied herself to the statuary lions in London's Trafalgar Square. The media was eating up these events and Yoko was getting the attention for her art that had been so elusive in the past.

In the summer of 1967, Yoko sent John Lennon a copy of Grapefruit. She also discovered his two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. Friends say she was in awe of Lennon's writing and impressed by his intellect.. and she was becoming attracted to him in other ways as well.