Renowned Australian artist Martin Sharp has died in Sydney aged 71.

Sharp came to prominence in the 1960s as an underground cartoonist and was one of three who founded the controversial Oz magazine that led to him being imprisoned on obscenity charges.

He was regarded as Australia's foremost pop and psychedelic artists and his posters of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan have become icons of the genre.

Among his work was one of the versions of the iconic clown's face entrance to Sydney's Luna Park.

He was a boarder at Sydney's Anglican Cranbrook School from the age of 12 and did his first series of portraits while studying there.

In a 2010 interview with ABC Radio National, Sharp said his father, a successful doctor, wanted him to go into a more "professional" career, and so he studied architecture at Sydney University for a time.

He said his mother was a good painter herself and was more supportive when Sharp wanted to pursue a career in the arts.

"I think mothers are great supporters of the arts," he said.

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Sharp's earliest influence came from Vincent van Gogh and the psychedelics and pop music of the 60s is also on show in his colourful works.

He said the psychedelic experience changed his view of the world.

"There was a feeling of optimism, the possibility of the world working. That was definitely part of the experience," he said.

He would listen to music when he painted and was a huge Dylan fan.

"He's singing about things which people didn't used to sing about, you know, moral issues and songs about the racial problems and The Times They Are a-Changin of course is a very dramatic song for those days, and still very valid," he said.

"An amazing figure I think."

In 1963 Sharp, Richard Neville and Richard Walsh launched Oz magazine, which aimed to be an expression of political and artistic freedom.

The trio received notoriety when they published a photo that appeared to show Neville and two friends urinating into a wall fountain outside the new P&O office in Sydney.

They were sentenced to prison - although they were later acquitted on appeal.

Martin Sharp's 1971 poster of Jimi Hendrix. ( Martin Sharp )

Following this, Sharp left Australia for London, where he embraced the alternative art and music scene.

It was here he met and befriended musician Eric Clapton in a bar.

Sharp gave Clapton a poem he had just written which was then used in the Cream song, Tales of Brave Ulysses.

The friendship also led to Sharp being commissioned to design the famous psychedelic collage album cover for Cream's Disraeli Gears.

Of his Hendrix poster, Sharp said he was trying to capture the singer's style.

"He epitomised the era, the '60s, and I think that's quite a good picture of him," he said.

"He is the sort of Jackson Pollock-y background to try and give that an expression of music."

When he returned to Australia, Sharp campaigned for many years to keep Sydney's Luna Park open to the public.

Self portrait: Martin Sharp, 1968. ( Martin Sharp )

But a fatal fire in the park's ghost train in 1979 deeply impacted Sharp and continues to haunt his work.

He said having rejected religion in his teens, the fire which killed six children and one adult made him a firm believer in God.

"The ghost train fire affected me a lot ... it really did," he told the ABC's Anne Maria Nicholson.

"God spoke through the fire in a mysterious way."

His paintings, Pentecost, Golgotha ad Eternity, pay spiritual tribute to the tragedy.

Wayne Tunnicliffe from the Art Gallery of New South Wales says Sharp's body of work is extremely diverse.

"He was someone who really transcended categories but kept the public at the forefront of what he did," he said.

His work has featured in exhibitions around the country and his portrait of Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil was a finalist in the 2012 Archibald Awards.

Sharp founded the Yellow House in Kings Cross in the 1970s as a hub for artists to display their work.

In his later years, Sharp kept a much lower profile, rarely leaving the family home although maintaining his wide circle of friends in the arts world.

He died at home on Sunday night following a long illness.