Over my dead body: Martin Sharp, Cranbrook and the $33m house

When Australia’s most celebrated pop artist, Martin Sharp, died 12 years ago, he left his grand Bellevue Hill mansion, Wirian, to a charitable trust to be preserved as a type of residency for artists. But there was a pertinent postscript to that bequest: that his alma mater, Cranbrook School next door, never get its hands on it.

Sharp’s dying wishes were overruled after a NSW Supreme Court judgment was handed down allowing the heritage-listed house to be sold “for the best price reasonably attainable at the earliest practicable opportunity”. Even if that buyer is Cranbrook.

The late artist Martin Sharp’s Bellevue Hill home, Wirian.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

The decision on Thursday by Justice Guy Parker brings to an end years of struggle by the Street of Dreams Martin Sharp Trust to maintain the increasingly run-down property and protect the artwork within it, all while not having enough money to pay for it and without realising its $33 million value.

“Through the will, Martin Sharp has sought to influence the future direction of the estate but without the provision of financial resources,” was the summary of a Sydney Living Museums report that was commissioned by the trust in 2016.

“This places the executors in an invidious situation where, on the one hand, they have Martin Sharp’s wishes clearly stated but, on the other, are confronted by the challenging reality of managing a significant cultural heritage property without any money to speak of.”

In agreeing to vary the terms of the trust, Parker noted that the artworks that fill the 1923-built house – paintings, sculptures and drawings – have to be removed because the trust can’t afford the appropriate insurance and security. The cleaning, maintenance and repairs of recent years have been undertaken by trustees personally, and without payment.

Martin Sharp inside his home in 2012, a year before he died.Credit: Steven Siewert

“We did everything humanly possible to save the house and keep it as a living, artistic place of creativity,” said long-time former trustee Luke Sciberras, who as a young painter lived at Wirian and was later appointed Sharp’s artistic executor.

“We held cocktail parties for philanthropists and hosted any number of arts ministers, the former governor Marie Bashir, the head of finance from the Art Gallery of NSW and the CEO of the National Art School, all of it under our own steam and at our own expense.”

It was to no avail. Ultimately, it was a unanimous decision of the trustees to apply to alter the trust. “The amount of money to come from this will do more for the artistic community in perpetuity, and that’s a wonderful gift to the nation,” Sciberras said.

The eight-bedroom house has been in the Sharp family since 1937, when it was purchased by Sharp’s grandfather, Stuart Douglas Ritchie, for £20,000 from Enid Anne Friend, wife of grazier Owen Friend. Sharp and his mother, Joan, inherited it in 1977.

The terrace at Wirian where Martin Sharp would often paint.Credit: Elizabeth Farrelly

Sharp moved back into the family home in 1973, having established the collaborative artist’s movement known as the Yellow House in Kings Cross, opening up Wirian in a similar fashion to fellow artists, itinerants and high-profile friends such as Marianne Faithfull, Bob Geldof and Eric Clapton.

Wirian remained Sharp’s studio for the remaining 40 years of his life as he produced his iconic artworks of Luna Park and American singer Tiny Tim, and initiated his film project known as Street of Dreams.

But just as Sharp’s significance grew, so too did Wirian’s value, and to none so much as the elite private school next door.

During Sharp’s time at Wirian there were numerous approaches from Cranbrook to buy the 1880-square-metre property, said Sciberras.

And excluding the school as a buyer would be detrimental to the sale price, according to valuer Malcolm Gunning. A valuation by Gunning put Wirian’s value at $33 million as of last August, up from $11.25 million a decade ago.

Regardless of Cranbrook’s financial interest, Sharp developed an animus against his old school’s council and senior management, said Parker. “It seems that Cranbrook received a bequest of family money which [Sharp] thought should have come to him, and which, had it done so, might have allowed him to endow Wirian as he had wished.”

As Sharp stated in his will: “I note the unfortunate and antagonistic relationship that has arisen over a number of years with my neighbour Cranbrook School and I direct my trustees not to deal with or favour that School in the administration of the trusts under this Will.”

Tiny Tim, Eternal Troubadour (1982) by Martin Sharp.Credit: Estate of Martin Sharp/Copyright Agency, image © Art Gallery of New South Wales

However, Sharp did acknowledge in his will that maintaining the house and grounds of Wirian could prove too expensive for the trust, and might need to be sold at some point in the future.

The amended deed poll also allows for the trust to change its name to The Martin Sharp Trust, and the bulk of Sharp’s art collection to be donated to the Art Gallery of NSW, the State Library of NSW and the National Arts School. The remaining art, furniture, and an antique toy collection is to be sold.

Art auctioneer Andrew Shapiro valued the remaining contents at $350,000.

Sharp’s artistic legacy is to be furthered by a monograph and a documentary on his work, and there are bursaries, endowments and scholarships in his name, as well as financial assistance for fine art students.

Cranbrook did not respond to questions about whether it still wants to buy Wirian.

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