Martin Sharp – His Life & Times
Joyce Morgan
Allen & Unwin
This portrait of Australian pop artist and Oz magazine co-founder Martin Sharp (1942-2013) moves between the loneliness of a privileged childhood, and the energetic creativity of Swinging London, the van Gogh-inspired Yellow House artists’ colony, to the reclusive Wirian years before his death.
It is a detailed, well-illustrated biography revealing a fascinating, complex man described as, “a stranger in a strange land who left behind a trail of stardust.” Images of naked flower children and psychedelic album covers and posters defined the Summer of Love, while Sharp’s paintings of the Sydney Opera House and involvement with Arthur Stace’s Eternity landmark scrawl, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Sydney’s Luna Park left a lasting mark on the Australian cultural landscape.
