Daily Inspiration: Martin Sharp on Moving Fast

“Life’s a total experiment. You never know what’s going to happen and you’ve got to be able to move fast.”

Martin Sharp, speaking with the Sydney Morning Herald:

After a lengthy battle with emphysema, cartoonist and counterculture artist Martin Sharp passed away at the age of 71 on Sunday, December 1. His long-time friend Philippa Drynan confirmed Sharp’s death in Sydney.

Sharp was born in New South Wales in 1942, making his mark with psychedelic posters featuring ’60s rock gods like Jimi Hendrix and pop culture figures like Marilyn Monroe. A one-time architecture student, Sharp turned his pen to counterculture comics in the paper Sydney Oz, headlining his first gallery show in 1965.

A 2009 interview with the National Portrait Gallery presented us with a still-vibrant artist, driven by the Campbellian ethos of “making the invisible visible.” Much of that tended to focus on irreverent, acid-trip takes on fame and celebrity in the free love era.

When he was interviewed last year by the Herald, Sharp said that even at 70, relying on the use of an oxygen tank, he was still hard at work.