“From his schooldays to the end of his life… Sharp, turned images that might seem trivial or ephemeral into monuments"

John McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday December 3, 2013

"You work for the public, you never probably meet. It’s tough for the people you actually know. You give more loyalty to the audience you don’t know. That is the position of being an artist."

Martin Sharp interviewed by Nick Waterlow, The everlasting world of Martin Sharp: paintings from 1948 to today, 2006, p24

Singer and ukulele player Tiny Tim was a recurring motif in Sharp’s art and his home was filled with images of the performer, who had a surprise hit with Tiptoe Through The Tulips. His star burned brightly for a moment in the late ‘60s but was soon relegated to what Sharp calls “the outer suburbs of show business”. Sharp laboured for more than a decade perfecting his Tiny Tim tribute film project, Street of Dreams.

Sharp was honoured with an Order of Australia in 2005 for services to the pop art movement. 

“I think artists taking awards is a bit risky because it might influence your work, but  the postie who delivered the letter said I had to accept it and so I took his advice,” 

The unreleased movie Hippie Hippie Shake, starring Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy, was the adaptation of Richard Neville’s 1995 book of the same name. It tells the story of Oz, the groundbreaking magazine launched in Sydney in 1963 by Sharp, Neville and Richard Walsh, and resurrected in London in 1967. Sharp was its art director, producing collages, paintings and satirical cartoons that combined elements of social commentary, high art and pop culture. Sharp was vocal about the movie saying “My character was involved in 55 scenes, none of which happened.”