John Lennon as An Artist: His Unseen Drawings

by Agape Charmani

Long before he took over the world with his songs, his actions and his ideas, John Lennon attended the prestigious Liverpool Art Institute (1957-1960). And even though he later formed the Beatles and stopped practicing art, he never let go of drawing and painting.

With his primary medium being line drawing, either in pen, pencil, or Japanese sumi ink, John created a series of works before, during and after his musically productive years. In 1969 John returned to his first artistic love, drawing when he created the “Bag One Portfolio” as a wedding gift for Ono, which was a chronicle of their wedding ceremony, thei honeymoon, and their plea for world peace -the famous Bed-in, while that suite also contained erotic sketches.

The ‘Bag One Series’ was first published and exhibited in January 1970 at the London Art Gallery. It’s duration was shorter than expected though, as the show was closed on the second day by Scotland Yard and the erotic lithographs were confiscated. “He had a habit of just giving his art away to people,” Yoko Ono told The Huffington Post. “He was pretty generous about that.”

John Lennon’s sketches and writings have been included and published in three bestselling books: In His Own Write (1964), A Spaniard in the Works (1965) and Skywriting By Word of Mouth (1987).