Mary Pinnock Martin Sharp

Martin Sharp is a well-known Australian painter, cartoonist and art director. He produced the satirical magazine OZ with Richard Neville and Richard Walsh and was a founding member of The Yellow House in Sydney. His bold posters, collages and paintings have been exhibited in numerous private and public galleries.

Mary Pinnock has known Sharp for years and years. “I painted him because he’s a friend and because he’s a fellow artist so there are no agendas there,” she says.

This is the first time Pinnock has ever painted a portrait. Instead, she specialises in painting natural history and cloudscapes. She also does a lot of trompe l’oeil for interior designers. “So painting a portrait for the Archibald was a totally fun thing,” she says.

“When I paint flowers and nature I sometimes magnify the subject to try and capture their essence. I wanted Martin’s portrait to capture his essence. We did two sittings. At the first I did preliminary drawings at his house, then he came to my studio after I’d transferred the drawings onto a large canvas. It didn’t need a lot of sittings. It wasn’t an intense thing. I deliberately made it very light. When you paint someone’s portrait they’re at the mercy of your paintbrush. I thought he was such a good sport to agree to it that I wanted to make it as soft as possible. That’s how I see Martin. He’s an ethereal sort of person.”

Born in Wagga Wagga in 1951, Pinnock studied at the Camden Institute in London and was a guest student at The Royal Academy. Returning to Australia, she attended the Alexander Mackie College.