Indica Gallery — Where Lennon Met Yoko Ono

In November 1966, John Lennon attended a preview of Yoko Ono's conceptual art exhibition 'Unfinished Paintings and Objects' at the Indica Gallery — a small avant-garde bookshop and gallery at 6 Mason's Yard in St James's. Lennon had been invited by gallery co-founder John Dunbar and arrived uncertain what to expect. One of Ono's pieces invited visitors to climb a ladder and read a word through a magnifying glass; the word was 'YES'. Another invited visitors to hammer a nail into a board for five shillings. Lennon asked if he could hammer an imaginary nail for an imaginary five shillings. Ono agreed.

The Indica Gallery had been co-founded in 1965 by Barry Miles, John Dunbar, and Peter Asher — brother of McCartney's girlfriend Jane Asher — and was a central hub of London counterculture, stocking underground publications, experimental art, and alternative literature. The building occupied a small courtyard just off Duke Street St James's. It was precisely the environment the Beatles were moving toward as they abandoned touring for studio experimentation.

The meeting between Lennon and Ono at Indica is widely regarded as one of the most consequential encounters in the history of popular music. Their relationship would reshape Lennon's artistic and personal life entirely. The building no longer functions as a gallery and carries no permanent marker, but it is thoroughly documented in Beatles and Lennon literature as the location where two of the twentieth century's most influential artists first made contact.