John Lennon once described his wife as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does".
Her circle of friends in the New York art world has included Kate Millett, Nam June Paik, Dan Richter, Jonas Mekas, Merce Cunningham, Judith Malina, Erica Abeel, Fred DeAsis, Peggy Guggenheim, Betty Rollin, Shusaku Arakawa, Adrian Morris, Stefan Wolpe, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol (she was one of the speakers at Warhol's 1987 funeral), as well as George Maciunas and La Monte Young.
In addition to Mekas, Maciunas, Young, and Warhol, she has also collaborated with DeAsis, Yvonne Rainer, and Zbigniew Rybczyński.

In 1989, the Whitney Museum held a retrospective of her work, Yoko Ono: Objects, Films, marking Ono's reentry into the New York art world after a hiatus.
At the suggestion of Ono's live-in companion at the time, interior decorator Sam Havadtoy, she recast her old pieces in bronze after some initial reluctance. "
I realized that for something to move me so much that I would cry, there's something there.
There seemed like a shimmering air in the 60s when I made these pieces, and now the air is bronzified.
Now it's the 80s, and bronze is very 80s in a way – solidity, commodity, all of that.
For someone who went through the 60s revolution, there has of course been an incredible change. . . .
I call the pieces petrified bronze.
That freedom, all the hope and wishes are in some ways petrified."

Over a decade later, in 2001, Y E S YOKO ONO, a 40-year retrospective of Ono's work, received the International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City, considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession.
YES refers to the title of a 1966 sculptural work by Yoko Ono, shown at Indica Gallery, London: viewers climb a ladder to read the word "yes", printed on a small canvas suspended from the ceiling.
The exhibition's curator Alexandra Munroe wrote that "John Lennon got it, on his first meeting with Yoko: when he climbed the ladder to peer at the framed paper on the ceiling, he encountered the tiny word YES. '
So it was positive.
I felt relieved.'"
The exhibition traveled to 13 museums in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Korea from 2000 through 2003.
In 2001, she received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University and, in 2002, was presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College
and the Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media.
The next year, she was awarded the fifth MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts from the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
In 2005, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York, which had hosted Yes Yoko Ono and where she had worked in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In 2008, she showed a large retrospective exhibition, Between The Sky and My Head, at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England.
The following year, she showed a selection of new and old work as part of her show "Anton's Memory" in Venice, Italy.
She also received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009.
In 2012, Ono held a major exhibition of her work To The Light at the Serpentine Galleries, London.
She was also the winner of the 2012 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest award for applied contemporary art.
In February 2013, to coincide with her 80th birthday, the largest retrospective of her work, Half-a-Wind Show, opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
and travelled to Denmark's Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Austria's Kunsthalle Krems, and Spain's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

In 2014 she contributed several artworks to the triennial art festival in Folkestone, England.
In 2015 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a retrospective exhibition of her early work, "Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960– 1971".
John Lennon once described his wife as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does". Her circle of friends in the New York art world has included Kate Millett, Nam June Paik, Dan Richter, Jonas Mekas, Merce Cunningham, Judith Malina, Erica Abeel, Fred DeAsis, Peggy Guggenheim, Betty Rollin, Shusaku Arakawa, Adrian Morris, Stefan Wolpe, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol (she was one of the speakers at Warhol's 1987 funeral), as well as George Maciunas and La Monte Young. In addition to Mekas, Maciunas, Young, and Warhol, she has also collaborated with DeAsis, Yvonne Rainer, and Zbigniew Rybczyński.
In 1989, the Whitney Museum held a retrospective of her work, Yoko Ono: Objects, Films, marking Ono's reentry into the New York art world after a hiatus. At the suggestion of Ono's live-in companion at the time, interior decorator Sam Havadtoy, she recast her old pieces in bronze after some initial reluctance. "I realized that for something to move me so much that I would cry, there's something there. There seemed like a shimmering air in the 60s when I made these pieces, and now the air is bronzified. Now it's the 80s, and bronze is very 80s in a way – solidity, commodity, all of that. For someone who went through the 60s revolution, there has of course been an incredible change. . . . I call the pieces petrified bronze. That freedom, all the hope and wishes are in some ways petrified."
Over a decade later, in 2001, Y E S YOKO ONO, a 40-year retrospective of Ono's work, received the International Association of Art Critics USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City, considered one of the highest accolades in the museum profession. YES refers to the title of a 1966 sculptural work by Yoko Ono, shown at Indica Gallery, London: viewers climb a ladder to read the word "yes", printed on a small canvas suspended from the ceiling. The exhibition's curator Alexandra Munroe wrote that "John Lennon got it, on his first meeting with Yoko: when he climbed the ladder to peer at the framed paper on the ceiling, he encountered the tiny word YES. 'So it was positive. I felt relieved.'" The exhibition traveled to 13 museums in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Korea from 2000 through 2003. In 2001, she received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Liverpool University and, in 2002, was presented with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Bard College
and the Skowhegan Medal for work in assorted media. The next year, she was awarded the fifth MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts from the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. In 2005, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Japan Society of New York, which had hosted Yes Yoko Ono and where she had worked in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In 2008, she showed a large retrospective exhibition, Between The Sky and My Head, at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, England. The following year, she showed a selection of new and old work as part of her show "Anton's Memory" in Venice, Italy. She also received a Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale in 2009. In 2012, Ono held a major exhibition of her work To The Light at the Serpentine Galleries, London. She was also the winner of the 2012 Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Austria's highest award for applied contemporary art. In February 2013, to coincide with her 80th birthday, the largest retrospective of her work, Half-a-Wind Show, opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
and travelled to Denmark's Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Austria's Kunsthalle Krems, and Spain's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
In 2014 she contributed several artworks to the triennial art festival in Folkestone, England. In 2015 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a retrospective exhibition of her early work, "Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960– 1971".
Yoko Ono