Martin Sharp - Exhibitions and reviews

Martin Sharp Archive

Australian artist Martin Sharp (1942-2013) did not follow the traditional gallery show and exhibition route in order to promote and sell his work. He was relatively well-off during his early life as he was making a name for himself in Australia and England. As a result, and due to his anti-establishment and counter-culture leanings, was able to become a voice of dissent to the mainstream narrative. Despite being prolific, he did not chase promotion, but nevertheless sold or disposed of a lot of work. As a prominent member of the counterculture he found fame, if not fortune, in the public arena, rather than the rarefied atmosphere of national galleries or high-end art dealers. As such, his public exhibitions were few and far between, and published reviews of his work are likewise scarce. Commentary is nevertheless to be found in art historical books and thematic accounts, especially relating to psychedelic posters. The following is a listing of known exhibitions, along with reviews of his art and publications where available. Comments on his art from other sources are also included. They are arranged chronologically.

1960

* Artists in the making, Australian Womens' Weekly, 26 October 1960.

1963

* OZ news story, Woroni, Australian National University Students Union, Canberra, 10 July 1963.

* OZ in brief, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 13 September 1963. Editors of OZ fined.

* NOISE - UNSW Arts Faculty magazine, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 11 November 1963. Cover art by Martin Sharp.

1964

* Gas Lash, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 17 February 1964. Notorious artwork by Martin Sharp.

* Letter to my editor, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 13 March 1964. Extensive letter in support of the art and journalism of Martin Sharp re Gas Lash.

* It's about that back page, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 13 March 1964. Letters critical of the art and journalism of Martin Sharp re Gas Lash.

* Academic Apathy, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 24 March 1964. Full page cartoon and text by Martin Sharp.

* The Point of Sharp, Tharunka, UNSW Students Union, Kensington, 26 March 1964. Letter in support of Sharp by Alex Carey.

* The Art of Sharp, Woroni, Australian National University Students' Union, Canberra, 17 September 1964: The Art of Sharp. There have been appearing lately, in the Sydney Student Press, cartoons, populated by little squiggly characters in different stages of inebriation, necking, status climbing or just plain idiocy. The figures are sustained by a seemingly careless handwriting and blotches of ink. Martin Sharp is a 22 year old student at the University of N.S.W. He is tall, thick lipped with kind but cynical eyes. He finds the controversy around his work somewhat surprising. As an artist, to him the problem is not whether to say it or not, but how to say it. Sydney has obviously thought otherwise. The controversy? Two of Martin Sharp's drawings, 'The Gas Lash' and an 'Oz' satire have been sent to Sydney Central Court on charges of alleged obscenity. It is impossible to discuss the trial comments since both cases are sub-judice. Martin Sharp stands accused, with the editors and publishers of 'Tharunka' and 'Oz.' In his opinion, everyone misses the point of his work. It is not a case of a ''misunderstood artist." Sharp's style indeed is fresh and beautiful. Some have accused him of having borrowed from Pfeiffer and Schultz and a few others. These people forget that the basis of all creativity is tradition. (See Hope's article in this paper). Sharp has succeeded in shocking the public into awareness of the 'surfie' goings on. 'Good clean surfie fun,' that's all the public wants to know of the 'fair dinkum surfie.' Yet surprisingly, it is not the expressions of Sharp that worked, but the things unsaid. There' is an uneasiness in his writing that can not be pinned down.

1965

8 December - Clune Gallery exhibition, Sydney.

* Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 8 December 1965: Art for Mart’s Sake. A Sharp Bite at a Tribal Hand. "Art For Mart's Sake," says the invitation to an exhibition of paintings, cartoons and pop sculpture by Martin Sharp which opens at the Clune Galleries today. The implied motivation is not commercial (his portrait of "Phyllis Stein" will hardly appeal to Norman Normal Esq.); it is personal. Mart's art is unique, and so too is his position in Sydney. If one had to choose a representative for the in group of young people who orbit around "OZ," "Tharunka," "Honi Soit", East Sydney Tech. and the Gas Lash discotheque, that representative would probably be 23-year-old Martin Sharp. The sort of people he represents are all in their early twenties. They are tertiary educated, highly personable, the sons and daughters of well-to-do parents, and biters of the tribal hand that fed them. White Ant. Martin himself is a sort of white ant from Bellevue Hill. He was born there (his father is a Macquarie Street dermatologist), educated at Cranbrook (where he was taught art by Justin O'Brien and won the art prize four times), and still lives at home in Cranbrook Lane, Bellevue Hill. After matriculating, he spent part of one year doing art at East Sydney Tech., and then reluctantly put in two terms at St. Paul's College and the Faculty of Architecture, Sydney University. "It was a pleasing-the-father kick," he says now. "The faculty didn't seem to think I was interested, and I wasn't, so I went back to Tech. for two more years. Tech. was never very good except for the art students' balls." As joint editor of "The Arty Wild Oat," a lively Tech. newspaper which survived for only two issues, he met Richard Neville, editor of "Tharunka" at the University of N.S.W. Neville also met Richard Walsh, editor of "Honi Soil" at a student editors' conference, and in 1963 the three of them combined forces to publish the highly successful satirical magazine "OZ." Sharp's exhibition contains some of his cartoons from "OZ," the "Australian" and the "Herald" (Archbishop Gough and other clergymen with padlocked minds); some ironic pieces of Victoriana ("My Son Who Nobly Responded To The Empire's Call"); some strange combinations of flesh and machinery ("Waltzing Matilda At The Gas Lash"): and such pop art pieces as a huge photograph of Sir Winston Churchill with a Union Jack face, and a vase full of cut-out glossy magazine lips. The cut-out smiles and gleaming dentures are a by-product of an animated film which Sharp helped to make on the forced commercial smiles of the newsstands. He and photographer Mike Molloy are now working on another film about super-Australian ideals. The visual element of the film will be those glass paintings of Aussie sportsmen which adorn the facades of most Sydney hotels, and the sound track will consist mainly of "Waltzing Matilda" and Dorothea Mackellar's "My Country." 

 

* Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 8 December 1965: Martin Sharp exhibition at Clune Galleries. By WALLACE THORNTON. The bite of contemporary satire, the send-up of debunking comment and the hard bash of direct attack — all form the coherent melange of Martin Sharp's exhibition at the Terry Clune Galleries. This is a first one-man show of youth rampant. It is the "best of OZ" - the "S.M.H. at its sharpest," together with a multitude of viewpoints painted, drawn or in montages and assemblages. It can be rough, raw, garish or subtle. Take it or leave it, like it or reject it, it cannot be ignored, One's reaction must be positive and to this reviewer Sharp has made his mark. The surreal, the unexpected, the strange or the abruptly shocking are stated in political, social or general comment that is made with no punches pulled. It is a developing expression, particularly in the painting, but Sharp is emerging with a forthright style. This interesting exhibition will open at 10 a.m. today.

* Elwyn Lynn, Art for Mart's Sake, The Australian, December 1965:  .....Sharp's is the comment on an affluent society, which has its rogues, fools and remnants of religions, but which is not so dangerously corrupt as was Daumier's France and Grosz's Germany...

 

* Roger Foley, Tharunka, Tuesday, 15 March 1966: Martin Sharp at the Clune Galleries. An exhibition of Art for Mart's Sake was held in the Clune Galleries, Macleay Street, King's Cross, for a short season from December 8 last year. If one wanted to be unkind, it could be remarked that Terry Clune is a long-term advertiser in OZ. Martin Sharp first came to public notice as the author rather than cartoonist of "The Gas Lash" which appeared on the back of Tharunka in Orientation Week, and as cartoonist for OZ magazine. So it is not surprising that this exhibition consists mostly of cartoons or other humorous portraits of life. Although using the technique of the Dadaists in collage and photo montage, Sharp is not trying to fell convention with a sharp retort, but rather with a more subtle smile, a direction to "Chacun a son gout." For this reason the exhibition was interesting to see, as a refutation of the criticism he and his fellows of the OZ ilk are gathering, that they have "no point of view." Rather they, or Sharp at least in this exhibition, is saying, "Let us not be dogmatic, people. Let us enjoy life with magnanimity, a tear in our eye for the ordinary man and his moral cowardice." On their own the works are not memorable, only the bare breasted Mona Lisa and perhaps the L.B.J. and Menzies bomber birds showed the graphical skill Sharp is capable of. These two were not for sale. The remainder are a colourful (ghastly pinks on silver foil), amusing but non-commercial smile. Roger Foley.

 

* Reminiscence by Nick Waterlow.  Just on a decade later, art curator Nick Waterlow looked back on the show and observed the following: I vividly remember Martin Sharp's 1965 Clune Gallery exhibition. It was one of the most precious memories I took back with me to London in 1966. A fine art sideshow is the best way I can describe the atmosphere the display created, a unique mixture of sardonic wit, irreverence and cleverness... He is one of those very rare creatures, whose alchemy makes visible the invisible and who bridges spans that no global engineer would undertake .... Martin Sharp is one of a handful of international guerillas bringing light to these dark ages. (Waterlow 1977) 

 

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1966

Exhibition in Sydney.

1967

1968

1969

1970

May - Sharp stages an exhibition at the old Clune Gallery, 59 Macleay Street, Potts Point, Sydney.

1971

1 April - official launch of the Yellow House.

June - exhibition at the University of Canberra Aquarius Arts Festival.

1972

19-21 December - Martin Sharp Art Exhibition, private, Mayfair, London.

1973

Martin Sharp exhibition at the Bonython Gallery, Sydney.

2000

August - exhibition at the Barry Stern Gallery, Sydney.

2009

October - exhibition of Martin Sharp works at the Museum of Sydney. Runs to March 2010.

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Last updated: 14 September 2023

Michael Organ, Australia