Lennon's fanciful art

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Imagine there's no music, only drawings.

John Lennon could have been a successful artist without playing a note. During the 1960s and '70s, the Beatle fluidly sketched whimsical scenes chronicling his life as a songwriter, social critic and family man. "Many people are surprised that John was a professional artist," said Mr. Lennon's second wife, Yoko Ono, over the phone from London last week. "He was always looking for a gallery to show his work, but he didn't have much luck there. Most galleries just thought of him as a famous musician."

Since the mid-1980s, Ms. Ono has been promoting her late husband's fine art talent by turning his scribbles into lithographs, serigraphs and etchings, and selling them to raise money for charitable causes. Exhibits of the limited-edition prints, produced in Toronto by Atelier GF and marketed by Legacy Fine Art and Productions of West Palm Beach, Fla., have been touring the country since 1994.

This weekend, "In My Life: The Artwork of John Lennon" comes to Old Town Alexandria, where about 100 prints and a handful of original drawings will be on view in a vacant furniture showroom starting this evening through Sunday. Proceeds from the sale of the artwork, priced from $200 to $20,000, will benefit the Alexandria Seaport Foundation.

Fans of Mr. Lennon will instantly recognize his appealing self-portrait with round glasses and long hair. It exemplifies his loose, playful style and the immediacy of his drawings, achieved through just a few pen strokes.

"He drew like he did his songs," said Ms. Ono. "There was no planning. He was very quick. The drawings just came."

Her posthumous translation of the ex-Beatle's original sketches into prints riles some in the art world who criticize the colored lithographs as more Ms. Ono's creations than Mr. Lennon's. In defending the touring prints, the 73-year-old widow said they fulfill her late husband's unmet desire to have his drawings taken seriously by galleries and the public. "They keep his art alive," she said.

Many of the images document Mr. Lennon's days as a house husband while living in the Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he was killed in 1980. Sketches made during a 1977 family vacation in Japan reveal an interest in that country's sumi ink art.

Mr. Lennon's art was also inspired by his music. "Imagine All the People" shows the songwriter sitting astride the planet Earth. Reproductions of his hand-written lyrics to his famous tunes, including "Revolution," "In My Life," and "Happy Christmas," are also for sale.

A conceptual artist who collaborated with her husband on several albums and films, Ms. Ono said she had no influence on his art-making. "It might have been encouraging for him that another artist was there, but our work was so different."