Yoko Ono was born into a privileged banking family on 18th February 1933. She studied philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College in New York following her father’s promotion to president of a New York bank.

Ono dropped out of Sarah Lawrence College in order to elope with the composer, Toshi Ichiyanagi, whom she married in 1956. After her second marriage to the musician and film producer, Anthony Cox, in 1963, she began to make an impact on the underground arts scene. Ono gained notoriety for her 'interactive conceptual events', most famously her 1964 piece, 'Cut', in which she invited members of an audience to completely remove her clothing by cutting off small scraps of material with a pair of scissors.

Ono had one daughter with Cox, named Kyoko (b.8th August 1963). Ono’s first solo show was in George Maciunes’ AG Gallery in New York in July 1961. Her continued involvement in the 1960s conceptual art movement, ‘Fluxus’ won her considerable international acclaim.

In 1966 she visited England and, in October of that year, met John Lennon at an exhibition of her work at the Indica Gallery in London. The pair embarked on a whirlwind romance which led to the break-up of both their marriages. The couple married on 20th March 1969, combining their honeymoon with a famous ‘bed-in’ for peace in the Hilton, Amsterdam.

Ono and Lennon collaborated on a number of musical releases and films, most notably their album 'Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins' (1968), the cover of which imfamously features both Ono and Lennon in the nude, and the twin 'Plastic Ono Band' releases of 1970.

Ono and Lennon underwent a period of separation between 1973 and 1974, which they termed their ‘lost weekend’, after their reconciliation. In 1975, her second child, Sean, was born, and the couple retired from public life to raise him until the release of their album 'Double Fantasy' (1980). In December 1980, Lennon was murdered by deranged fan, Mark Chapman.

Ono has been prominent in a number of anti-gun campaigns since his death, and continues to be a prominent peace campaigner. In 1997, a major retrospective of her work, 'Have You Seen The Horizon Lately?', toured throughout the world.

Routinely (if unfairly) vilified as ‘the woman who broke up the Beatles’, Ono is a major conceptual artist in her own right. She lives in New York City.