GRAPHIC DESIGN HISTORY 2009

Regarded as this country's most prominent Pop artist, Martin Sharp has made significant contributions to Australian culture since the early 6Os, with his posters and record covers in particular receiving international recognition. Martin contributed to Australian "Oz" magazine in 1963, published by Richard Neville and Richard Walsh, beginning Martins fame. Richard Neville established the London "Oz', which was just as controversial as its Australian ancestor, Martin became its Art Director and witty cartoonist.

Pop culture in England at the time attracted and activated Martin’s already highly alive imagination. “Oz” magazine was achieving for him in England what it had done in Australia. He was becoming known. When he was introduced to a musician in a night club one evening Martin wrote some lyrics on a serviette and gave it to him in the hope it would lead to something. The musician was the famous rock guitarist Eric Clapton, and the song "Tales of Brave Ulysses” was recorded on the Cream’s next record album “Disraeli Gears" for which Martin subsequently also designed the cover. The next cover design for the Cream was ''Wheels of Fire'. Martin was awarded a New York Art Directors Prize for Best Album Design for 1969.

Martin had found in England the Pop culture he knew existed there. He became a recognised Pop artist and designed posters of Bob Dylan, Jimmy Hendrix and Donovan. He also found Tiny Tim, an artist whose influence and inspiration has remained with him to this day. Martin's second and most important art education was living in Chelsea in the late sixties. Eric Clapton, and the Australian film maker and artist Phillipe Mora, were sharing Martin's studio. Martin continued his interest with the idea of Appropriation creating “Art Book", another gem-like production approximately 5" x 6" in size and incorporating 36 colour collages cut from the pages of glossy art books, bringing together the work in single images of Magritte and Van Gogh, Matisse and Magritte, Botticelli and Picasso with occasional overlays of Van Gogh on Van Gogh. Van Gogh on Botticelli or Vermeer on Vermeer. Explained Martin, “I have never been shy about cutting things up if I had a good idea. To me it was worth the price of a book for the idea it expressed, the interconnecting of different worlds. "I could put a Gaugan figure in a Van Gogh landscape, make the composition work, and also say something about their relationship."

During the seventies, Martin engaged with the Nimrod Theatre and produced the Nimrod posters. This important set of posters, now a collectors' item like so many of his limited editions, included his poster for the play "Young Mo”. The Australian comic "Mo” became the symbol of the Nimrod Theatre and one of Martin's most well known images.