Born on February 18: Yoko Ono, a life of imagining peace  

Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933. She grew up in the privileged environment of a family of bankers and received an artistic education from her music-loving parents from an early age. But the war came and forced her family to take refuge in the countryside, leaving their comfortable life behind. 

After the end of the fightinh, Yoko and her family emigrated to the United States, where the young woman began studying philosophy while keeping up with the artistic circles in vogue at the time. She eventually abandoned her studies when she married a Japanese composer, Toshi Ichiyanagi. She then decided to devote herself to her lifelong passion, organizing events in their Manhattan loft that quickly gained recognition and were attended by all New York's avant-garde artists. Her paintings and poetry were also exhibited, leading her to join the Fluxus movement, a new form of modern art that advocated the ephemeral nature of the work. 

During a performance in London in 1966, the young artist (then divorced from her second husband, an art promoter) met John Lennon. Initially friends, the two artists collaborated on a few projects before accepting their mutual love at first sight and marrying three years later, making their union official in the eyes of the world. During their honeymoon in Amsterdam, they organized a “bed-in”, during which, for a week, they received the press and spectators in pyjamas, in the bed of their hotel room, to demonstrate their desire to see peace emerge in the world.  

Together in the city, but also on stage, as they founded the Plastic Ono Band, they released their first album under the title “Live Peace In Toronto”. It was on this album that John Lennon sang “Imagine”, co-written with his wife. For her part, the singer released her first solo opus, “Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band”. Her career continued in the years that followed, with releases such as “Fly” and “Feeling The Space”, and a tour that took her to her childhood home of Japan. 

In 1980, when their son Sean was five years old, John Lennon was murdered in front of Yoko's eyes, and since then she has never ceased to pay tribute to him, not only through her songs, but also through her painting exhibitions. Once again, art became the artist's refuge and symbol of “Peace and Love”. Now aged 92, Yoko Ono still lives in New York, at the side of her son Sean.

(Céline Massart - Tr.: MH - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)
Photo: Yolo Ono on stage at the Aula Q of the VUB in Brussels (Belgium) on February 28, 1986, for the release of her album “Starpeace”.