A collection of artwork explores the bond between father and son
For John Lennon and Yoko Ono, art and life were never very far apart. So when they had a child, Sean, in 1975, Lennon temporarily retired from the music business to help raise him; now the ex-Beatle's playful drawings from that period (which came to a tragic end in 1980 with Lennon's death) have been assembled by Ono into a children's book, Real Love: The Drawings for Sean, slated for hardcover release from Random House next month.
Ono, reached by PW at her Manhattan studio, recalled, "John and I wanted to have a child -- we were working on it. It was difficult. Then, suddenly it was going to happen. John was ecstatic. We were ecstatic."
With Sean's birth, fathering became a full-time job for John. As Sean grew older, Ono said, "John kept trying to connect with him every day. Of course, his way of doing this was drawing. He would draw something and say, `Sean, look, what's this?' And Sean would say, `That's an elephant.' It was touching."
The book's title, Real Love, is taken from a Lennon song written in 1979, recorded by him as a demo, which was subsequently released as a "new" Beatles track on the 1996 Anthology 2 album, with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr providing overdubbed accompaniment.
The drawings are executed in Lennon's trademark stripped-down antic linear style. Accompanying these are the word-plays that marked his first published books of the 1960s, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, which introduced the public to Lennon's skills as a cartoonist.
The artwork in Real Love has been augmented with color -- lavish polychrome treatments that have a decidedly 1990s Photoshop-look to them. The decision, Ono said, was "artistic," adding that she has been employing the same graphic artist for the past 15 years to help "enhance" the extant Lennon material, but "not to overwhelm the drawing itself."
One typical illustration from the new book, captioned "a cat napping" in Lennon's handwriting, shows a fat cat sleeping, curled up on a pillow, its head tucked under its tail, while a mouse looks on attentively from a safe
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| ACCORDING TO ONO, the book took time "to happen in an organic way." |
distance. A thought balloon over the cat's head shows him dreaming of a mouse. Elsewhere, the allusions are more complex, as in "the camel dances and having danced moves on," which shows an exaggeratedly humped camel walking lazily past an Egyptian step pyramid. Here the settings are primordial, suggesting an overall innocent mood of Edenic bliss.
As Ono remembers it, the drawings were the result of "precious moments," made mostly when Sean was between the ages of two and five. "Sean collaborated," she said, and as he did, "John got more and more interested in
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| REAL LOVE: A book of drawings reflects Lennon's relationship with Sean, who was five when his father was killed. |
Sean's work." The drawings by father and son "stacked up" over time, Ono said, and were hung on the walls of their apartment at the Dakota. To Ono, they came to represent "a sweet moment that I was witnessing." And, among John's artwork, these drawings clearly stood out for her. She said, "I felt that the strongest of John's drawings were the ones that he had done for Sean."
She had "always wanted to do the book," she said, but it wasn't a project that she forced into being. "I thought, one day this will become a children's book. It took all that time to happen in an organic way, rather than pushing it."
In recent years, Lennon's reputation as a fine artist has been growing, thanks in part to Bag One Arts, a program overseen by Ono that issues limited-edition prints of Lennon's drawings. These serigraphs are then provided to galleries for exhibition. Ono said, "Maybe [the book] came out of the exposure that John's artwork has been receiving for the past 10 years. Random House got excited because of the work that was being done by Bag One."
Beatlemaniac as Publisher
For Kate Klimo, v-p and publishing director, Random House Children's Publishing, the project was a "labor of love." She describes herself as a "John Lennon fan and Beatlemaniac," not that different from the audience of 35- to 55-year-olds whom she defines as the target consumers for the book. For Klimo, "The Beatles were the most important thing that happened in my childhood," a feeling she believes is widely shared.
The book came to Klimo's attention through Risa Kessler of RHK Creative Services, who acted as literary agent on the project for Sony Signatures, which represents Bag One Arts for licensing. Kessler, herself a former 20-year Random House veteran, held an auction for Real Love; Klimo was the high bidder, paying what she termed "a healthy six figures." She explained, "I was the fiercest Beatlemaniac. For me, it was an act of passion -- John was my Beatle."
The project was delivered to the publisher fairly complete. "It was pretty much a finished concept, as images from Bag One," according to Klimo. Was the deal complicated? "Not more than any other modern deals -- which are complicated," she said. "The Beatles were not involved with [the deal]. It was strictly Sony in conjunction with Yoko's personal attorney."
Crossover Hopes
Klimo sees the title as having the same kind of crossover appeal as such previous Random efforts as Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go! "Its appeal is sentimental. We've positioned it as a father-and-son collaboration, an outgrowth of John's active role as a parent. We think it makes a good gift from father-to-son or from son-to-father." For this reason, the book's official pub date is Father's Day (June 20). "Apart from our Star Wars books, it's our lead title on the spring list," Klimo explained. The first printing is 150,000 copies; in foreign rights, six publishers have signed on to join Random's print run or will be running the project separately themselves.
As for promotion, major advertising is planned, as well as TV and magazine interviews with Ono. The book will also be featured on Random House's Web site. And a crossover retail strategy is already in motion. "The reps are selling to both adult buyers and children's buyers. And the retailers have also taken a strong stand," Klimo said. Music stores, such as Tower and Musicland, have shown strong interest, as well as specialty catalogues such as BeatleFest.
The book is just one further addition to the larger Lennon/Ono message. "I hope it will bring joy to many parents," Ono said. "I hope that children will enjoy it and learn from it. I just like the fact that it's a lot of fun -- the word games and the drawings themselves. The playfulness of John is very important."
