Sharpest

Lowell Tarling

Description

Lowell Tarling recorded Martin Sharp's life, and his effect on his friends, over twenty years. Now two volumes in one, in advance of the film of these books - GHOST TRAIN...



Sharp: The Road to Abraxas - Part One, 1942-1979

Sharper: Bringing It All Back Home - Part Two, 1980-2013



'Like the Ancient Mariner, it's also a ghastly tale. I could understand the events at Luna Park a bit. I was trying to understand them and then suddenly there was this poetic language working to say: this is a crucifixion, Golgotha, death by fire. And then it starts to fit into Apocalyptic vision. It was Abraxas if you like - the dark face and the light face. To look upon Abraxas is blindness. To know it is sickness. To worship it is death. To fear it is wisdom. To assist it not is redemption. I don't know what it means. I've never been able to work it out. You get a Pop Art Parallel. It was the Year of the Child, the place of Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, and the Ghost Train. You then get these events that are caused by plotting, not caring for kids, carelessness, living a human life - the way of the world.' - Martin Sharp, 4 March 1984

Informations

• Publié par: ETT Imprint
• Date de parution: 17 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781922473677
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2021
SHARP (Volume 1) first published in 2016 by ETT Imprint
SHARPER (Volume 2) first published in 2017 by ETT Imprint

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no par􀀁t may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

ETT IMPRINT
PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Australia

Copyright © Lowell Tarling 2016, 2017, 2021

ISBN 978-1-922473-68-4 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-922473-67-7 (ebook)

Design by Hanna Gotlieb and Tom Thompson

Christ is more of an artist than the artists – he works in living spirit and flesh, he makes men instead of statues.
Vincent van Gogh Letter to Emile Bernard, 27 June 1888
THANKS
The first and greatest thanks to Martin, whose cooperation and assistance made this book possible.

Secondly, I would like to thank my family: Amber, Joel and Zoë, and especially my wife Robbie who urged me to transcribe my taped interviews, pushed me to write this book, listened to every draft chapter and made innumerable editorial suggestions.

Thanks to Tom Thompson who made this production possible.

Thanks and gratitude to the following people, most of whom agreed to be interviewed on tape and many of whom contributed in other ways too:

Jim Anderson, Mic Conway, Melody Cooper, Peter Draffin, Roger Foley-Fogg, Susan Jensen, Sebastian Jorgensen, Marilyn Karet, Peter Kingston, Jeannie Lewis, Jon Lewis, Tim Lewis, Lex Marinos, Ted Markstein, Philippe Mora, Richard Neville, Michael Organ, Mal Ramage, Adrian Rawlins, Ian Reid, Peter Royles, Alexander (Sandy) Sharp, Roslyn Sharp, Russell Sharp, Garry Shead, Gary Shearston, Clayton Simms, Max Skeen, Tiny Tim, William Yang, Greg Weight.

And to all those who I have not mentioned by name, who spoke with me and emailed me, whose words and ideas I have used, my heartfelt thanks.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Little Prince
Art Father
Arty Wild Boys
OZ is a New Magazine
OZ Trial – London Calling
Fresher Cream
Art of Pop
Muybridge, Vincent & Tiny
Art About Art
Underground Meets the Underworld
The Yellow House
Yesterday’s Papers
Counterculture Goes Mainstream
. Out & About in Paris & London
Preparing for Tiny
Kold Komfort
Street of Dreams
Revenge of the Clowning Calaveras

Index
1. THE LITTLE PRINCE
Finger painting, I remember doing that. Miss Koulson was very good, my first art teacher.
MARTIN SHARP
Martin Ritchie Sharp was born in Sydney, 21 January 1942, the day of the first Japanese air strike on Rabaul, Papua & New Guinea. His first home was his Ritchie grandparents’ place, Wirian, 3 Victoria Road Bellevue Hill.
For the duration of the war, Martin’s father, Dr Henry Sharp had been assigned to the Medical Branch of the RAAF with the rank of Flight Lieutenant. At the time of Martin’s birth, he was working on the RAAF Recruiting Train, which carried staff to deal with enlistments for the war effort. On hearing the joyous news, Henry hurried home the next day to welcome his newborn son. (1)
Within six months, Henry was shipped overseas where he joined the Spitfire Squadron 453, an Australian air control unit of the RAAF in England. (2) Martin said, ‘He loved those years but the worst thing was having to examine the pilots and give them a health clearance. It’s like writing a death warrant. The average age was 22 and he knew that 45 per cent of the time he’d never see them again.’ (3)
That was Henry’s life for the next three and a half years while his wife Joan (Jo) and son Martin were living an extremely comfortable life back home. Their only indication of World War 2 was the night of 31 May when three Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour and attempted to sink Allied warships. (4) Wirian has distant harbour views from the first floor verandah. Jo took baby Martin upstairs and watched the action like fireworks. She later told him the bombardments shook the house. Too young to comprehend those ‘fireworks’, Martin has a clearer memory of wartime double-decker buses painted in camouflage colours.
Martin spent his first three years in the company of his mother, grandparents Stuart and Vega Ritchie and their home-helps – cook, maid, gardener-chauffeur and Martin’s 19-year old nanny Roma Leonard (‘Nursy’). These were the most significant adults in Martin’s early life. (5)
The Ritchie surname appears in both Martin’s mother and his father’s family. They are not connected. His mother’s Ritchie line is Scottish, his father’s is Irish. The Northern Irish Ritchies established in Bega NSW in the 1850s. Whereas from his mother’s Scottish line, Martin’s great-grandfather James Ritchie and brother, came to Australia with enough funds to start a tool-making business, making ploughs and farm equipment. The Ritchie Bros succeeded very quickly. In 1900 James Ritchie purchased a superb property called Telford, with absolute water frontage at the Royal National Park, Port Hacking.
After James’ passing, his only son Stuart inherited everything and Stuart always improved massively on everything he touched. He transformed Telford into a grand residence and expanded Ritchie Bros into a major manufacturing and engineering firm. Located at Auburn, he built rails and carriages for NSW Rail. BHP was among Stuart’s directorships (Commonwealth Steel Newcastle). It provided one-third of the Trans-Australia rail lines across the Nullarbor and a quarter of the steel used to erect the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
After his marriage to Vega (Vee) Kopson, a Swedish-Australian, Stuart and Vee settled in 105 The Boulevarde Strathfield where Martin’s mother Joan (b. 1915) was raised and schooled at the local Meridan Girls College. Shortly before the Second World War, Stuart bought Wirian (3 Victoria Road, Bellevue Hill) located next door to Cranbrook School, which Martin and many Sharp relatives attended.
Says Martin, ‘I’m not sure what Wirian means. The closest I’ve got is David Gulpilil – the wonderful actor – said it was the name of the tribe that lived around here. The house was built in 1920 and my grandparents and my mother moved here in 1937. I grew up there as a baby during the Second World War.’ (6)
Henry returned from the war in 1945. Jo had married a doctor but a Flight-Lieutenant came home. Martin recalls, ‘I remember the day he came back. I was about 3½. He was lying on the floor. He and my mother were loving and cooing while I was wondering, “Who’s this guy? He’s a bit fat. He’s got hairy underarms…” (that sort of thing). Anyway, he was my Dad!
‘When my father came back he didn’t really connect with me. I think my mother knew him well but I didn’t know who he was and in a strange way he never changed much from that person. He was always with adults and found it difficult dealing with children. He didn’t like me as a baby. I don’t get that feeling – he holds me up in a picture and sniffs my bottom. My mother said, “your father never liked children”.
‘My mother would’ve loved more children but she got sick. She got a staphylococcal throat. He came back from the war with something that infected her. So I think the war indirectly poisoned her health.’ (7)
But the lounge parties continued – attended by socialites and sometimes celebrities. ‘Cocktail parties were it,’ says Martin. ‘You never had such civilized, lovely people. The jabber of voices, the drinks, someone at the piano playing, it was a lovely thing but you’d never get the idea they’d been to a war and lost half their friends. You can imagine coming from the Battle of Britain to Bellevue Hill and trying to get back into civilian life!’ (8)
On his return, Henry served in the RAAF section of Concord Hospital and later as Deputy Principal Medical Officer Eastern Area, NSW. In 1945-1946 he went away again, to serve as Principal Medical Officer in South Australia. His enlistment had committed him to a further 12 months after the end of the war.
Also back from the war was a group of artists who became known as the Merioola group. Merioola was a colonial mansion-cum-boarding house on Edgecliff Road Edgecliff, walking distance from Wirian. It was managed by Melbourne chatelaine Chica Lowe who encouraged artists, dancers, writers and theatre people to take up residence and form an artistic community. Artists included Donald Friend, Margaret Olley, Harry Tatlock Miller, Arthur Fleischmann and Justin O’Brien.
Jo knew Justin from the days when she had enrolled at the Julian Ashton Art School. She rekindled those art contacts while Henry was in South Australia. (9)
Henry came home proper in 1946 and stayed put, having served for the duration of the war plus the requisite 12 months. For the married couple, Grandfather Stuart purchased 25 Cranbrook Lane, Bellevue Hill, who moved in with 4-year old Martin. Henry returned to General Practice and started his academic work in dermatology, studying late in the room next to Martin’s bedroom.
Martin recalls their family unit of three, plus maid and a nanny, ‘When Dad came back there was a maid called Francis who he’d inherited from his Bega relatives. She was very old. My mother didn’t like having her there. She couldn’t eat her food. She used to spoon it into all the pewter jugs that were around, which was all right until the mould came out. Francis found the food had been dumped while my mother was getting thinner and thinner!’
Henry played his part in family life, enjoying cocktail parties and family ge