Indica – Nostalgia Central

The Indica was a bookshop and counterculture art gallery in Mason’s Yard (off Duke Street), St James’s, London – in the same courtyard as the Scotch of St James club, which was incredibly popular with the in crowd in 1960s London.

The gallery in the basement of the Bookshop was owned by John Dunbar (husband of Marianne Faithfull), Peter Asher, and Barry Miles. Paul McCartney supported the venue (he was dating Asher’s sister Jane and living in the Asher family house at the time) and encouraged fellow Beatles member John Lennon to visit the gallery.

On 7 November 1966, Lennon attended a preview evening of “Unfinished Paintings”, a conceptual art exhibition by Yoko Ono.

Lennon was drawn to a piece called “Ceiling Painting”. It was a blank canvas attached to the ceiling with just one word written on it in very small letters. Climbing the ladder placed under the painting, Lennon ascended to the top, looked through the magnifying glass hanging from a string, to read the word “YES” on the canvas.

He subsequently said that was the moment he “sort of fell in love with Yoko.”

In the summer of 1966, the Indica Bookshop was separated from the Indica Gallery and moved to 102 Southampton Row. The gallery closed its doors on 3 November 1967.

The counter-cultural newspaper The International Times was started in the basement of the new bookshop.