Martin Sharp is an artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made tremendous contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist. His famous psychedelic posters of Bob Dylan, Donovan and many others, rank as classics of the genre. His covers, cartoons and illustrations were a central feature of OZ magazine, both in Australia and in London. Martin also co-wrote one of Cream's most famous songs, "Tales of Brave Ulysses", and in the 1970s, he became a champion of singer Tiny Tim, and of Sydney's embattled Luna Park. Martin was educated at Cranbrook private school, where one of his teachers was the noted artist Justin O'Brien.
In 1960, Martin enrolMartin Sharp is an artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made tremendous contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist. His famous psychedelic posters of Bob Dylan, Donovan and many others, rank as classics of the genre. His covers, cartoons and illustrations were a central feature of OZ magazine, both in Australia and in London. Martin also co-wrote one of Cream's most famous songs, "Tales of Brave Ulysses", and in the 1970s, he became a champion of singer Tiny Tim, and of Sydney's embattled Luna Park. Martin was educated at Cranbrook private school, where one of his teachers was the noted artist Justin O'Brien.
In 1960, Martin enrolled at the National Art School at East Sydney, where he began his artistic career contributing to the short-lived student magazine The Arty Wild Oat, along with fellow artists Garry Shead and John Firth Smith. He also submitted cartoons to The Bulletin. In 1961, he enrolled for two terms in Architecture at Sydney University before returning to the NAS. In late 1963 or early 1964 Martin met Richard Neville, editor of the University of NSW student magazine Tharunka, and Richard Walsh, editor of its Sydney University counterpart Honi Soit. Both wanted to publish their own "magazine of dissent" and they asked Sharp and Shead to become contributors. The magazine was dubbed O>. From 1963-65 Martin was its art director and a major contributor. During the life of Australian Oz Sharp, Neville and Walsh were twice charged with printing an obscene publication. The first trial was relatively minor, and should have been a non-event, but they were poorly advised and pleaded guilty, which resulted in their convictions being recorded. As a result, when they were charged with obscenity a second time, their previous convictions meant that the new charges were considerably more serious. The charges centred on two items in the early issues of OzZ - one was Sharp's ribald poem "The Word Flashed Around The Arms", which satirised the contemporary habit of youths gatecrashing parties; the other offending item was the famous photo (used on the cover of OZ #6) which depicted Neville and two friends pretending to urinate into a Tom Bass sculptural wall fountain, set into the wall of the new P&O office in Sydney, which had recently been opened by Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Sharp, Neville and Walsh were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Their convictions caused a public outcry and they were subsequently acquitted on appeal, but the so-called "OZ Three" realised that there was little future battling such strong opposition....more
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