Sharp was called Australia's foremost pop artist. Sharp co-wrote one of Cream's best known songs, "Tales of Brave Ulysses", created the cover art for Cream's Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire albums. He also designed at that time a controversial poster titled "Rasputin & his London Popes" for an antique shop in Barcelona run by a young Spanish photographer named Alexis de Vilar.
For the most of the 1970s and beyond, Sharp's work and life was dominated by two major interests: Sydney's Luna Park and the entertainer Tiny Tim.
Sharp's involvement with the restoration of Luna Park in the 1970s proved a bittersweet experience. A year later, as pressure mounted to redevelop the prime harbourside site, an arson attack in the Luna Park Ghost Train claimed seven lives, including a father and his two sons. The Luna Park fire was a turning point in Sharp's life; like many others he firmly believed that the fire was a deliberate act of terrorism aimed at destroying the park and making the site available for redevelopment and in a 2010 interview on the ABC Radio National program The Spirit of Things, he revealed that the fire and the circumstances surrounding it had exerted a profound effect on his spiritual outlook.
Sharp first saw performer Tiny Tim at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968 at the suggestion of Eric Clapton. From that time on, Tiny Tim was one of Sharp's strongest inspirations.
"Tim's appropriation of song is very much like my appropriation of images. We are both collagists taking the elements of different epochs and mixing them to discover new relationships."
Sharp maintained a lifelong friendship with artist Lin Utzon, daughter of the Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon. The Danish architect was controversially forced from his uncompleted masterpiece in 1966 and secretly left Australia with the aid of Sharp's mother.
In the mid-1990s, Sharp helped broker a reconciliation between the Sydney Opera House and Jørn Utzon, who subsequently developed a set of design principles to guide the building's future.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Martin Sharp or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
Mr. Martin Sharp |
Max Ernst, the Birdman 1967 |
Cannabis: The Putting together of the Heads 1967 |
Live. Give. Love 1967 |
Mr. Tambourine Man 1967 |
Oz is a new magazine Cover, 1967 |
Oz Magazine 1967 |
Sex 1967 |
Sunshine Superman [Donovan] 1967 |
'Cream poster, 1968 |
Cream Album Cover, 1968 |
Vincent 1968 |
Oz Magazine 1969 |
The Virtuoso voice of Miss Jeannie Lewis ... presents Gypsy Train 1970 |
We are them... They are us .... Moratorium 1970 |
Cover for Art Book 1972 |
Man Walking on the Moon 1972 |
Warm Red Boof Head 1973 |
Eternity, Haymarket 1977 |
Paris Visions 1978 |
Paris, Pandora's Cross 1978 |
The Venetian Twins, Nimrod 1979 |
The Festival of Sydney 1981 |
Adelaide Festival March 1982 |
Tiny Tim Eternal Troubadour Opera House 5 Sept. 1982 |
Eternity 1990 |
Regular Records 1979-1989, Boxed Set 1990 |
Art Galaxy 1991 |
Lest We Forget 1991 |
Tiny (Tim) Paddo Market 1992 |
The Sydney Opera House Is 10 2000 |
Tiny Tim 2010 |
The thousand dollar bill |
No comments:
Post a Comment