A Virtual Art Exhibit Dedicated to Nipper
NipperArt is a gallery featuring artwork related to Nipper, the Terrier that was the trademark for the Victor Talking Machine Company and its later RCA incarnation. The original painting of this part Bull Terrier, part Fox Terrier dog listening to an Edison Bell Phonograph was rejected by Edison's British company, but Nipper did get a new machine to listen to in a revised painting which would become one of the most recognized product images in the history of advertising.The earliest Nipper advertisements were noted in a November 1901 "letter to the editor" of the Edison trade magazine The Phonogram with the writer pointing out that this was essentially product misrepresentation since the dog couldn't be listening to "His Masters' Voice" because, unlike the Phonograph, owners of the gramophone couldn't make records on their talking machines.
The rest, of course, is history as the disc record became the dominant format, the Victor Talking Machine Company became the largest phonograph company in the world, and Nipper became an icon inspiring cartoons, parodies and other derivitive creations for over a century.
.
Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph (Original)
Artist: Francis Barraud, 1898
Media: Oil on canvas, 36" x 28"
Description: The original painting by Francis Barraud displayed an Edison Bell Phonograph as the featured talking machine.
Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph (Revised)
Artist: Francis Barraud, 1898
Media: Photograph
Description: Francis Barraud revised his Phonograph painting with what was to become known as "His Master's Voice"
Leonard Petts, author of the Story of Nipper and the 'His Master's Voice' picture (published for The Talking Machine Review International, 1973), quotes Alfred Clark (Managing Director of the Gramophone Company in 1935) as follows: "He (Francis Barraud) took it to a company then prominent in the sale of wax cylinder phonographs, to see whether they were interested enough to acquire it. They did not seem at all impressed by the originality and beauty of the picture, but asked for more time to think it over."
Barraud replaced the cylinder machine (an Edison commercial model) with a brass horn and a talking machine supplied by The Gramophone Company. Johnson's company then purchased the updated picture.
The Moorestown, New Jersey Nipper's, Roots of Nipper
Artist: Margaret Ingersoll, c. 2005
Media: Paint on fiberglass
Sponsor: Lockheed Martin
Click on this Nipper to see the entire Nipper exhibition
Photographs courtesy of Nipper 2005
The 14-foot stained-glass window, one of four originally in the tower of the Victor Company’s headquarters in Camden, New Jersey, on display in the Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture Wing at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and Jaclyn Nash).
.
.
.
A Nipper Sighting
Walking down a Luzem, Switzerland street in 2006, Doug Fink, a Friend of the Phonograph, photographed this painting of Nipper.
Nipper, The Flatwater Folk Art Museum, Brownville, NE
"Little Nipper" Point of Sale Display for RCA Victor 45 RPM record player and "Little Nipper" Record Albums, 1949 (PM-1975)
First Recorded Sighting of the Big Nipper
Artist: Sheila O'Hara, Oakland, CA, 1987
Media: Woven tapestry, 32.5" x 19.5"
Location: Private Collection (FP1034)
Gramomobil
Artist: Unknown
Media: Color postcard, Berlin, 4 1/4" x 5 3/4"
His Master's Voice
Artist: Anne van Wijk, Amsterdam, 1988
Media: Collage, color postcard, 4 1/2" x 5 3/4"
His Master's Voice - You are the Girl for Me
Artist: Unknown
Media: Postcard, circa 1912
His Master's Voice (with Apologies)
Artist: Tom Brown, Publisher: Davidson Bros.
Media: Postcard, circa 1903
Comic Header from "And Her Name Was Maud!" by Fred Opper
Comic Supplement of the Boston American, July 9, 1905 by the American Journal-Examiner (Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics)
Hearing
Artist: A.E. Kennedy
Media: Postcard, circa 1911
His Master's Voice - Back cover of Consolidated Talking Machine Co. Catalogue
Artist: Francis Barraud, c.1901
Media: Embossed color paper, 4" x 6", 38 pages
Front cover of Consolidated Talking Machine Co. catalogue
Re-creation of His Master's Voice at the South Pole
Artist: Unknown
Media: Photograph, b-wScott's Antartica Expedition replaced the fox terrier with a husky listening to "His Master's Voice."
Home Music Voice
Artist: Unknown, c.1920
Media: Litho on tin
HMV imitation with chicken replacing Nipper
The Success Sausage Machine
Artist: Unknown, c.1905
Postcard
Temperance and Prohibition, His Master's Voice, 1904 (Courtesy of Ohio State University) (from Prohibition Cartoons by D.F. Stewart and H.W. Wilbur, Defender Publishing Company, 1904
His Master's Voice - William Jennings Bryan running again in 1908
Title: His Master's Voice
Publisher: Schnabel Cliche Druk
Publication Date: 1925
Illustrator: Lawson Wood (Clarence Lawson Wood was born in Highgate, London in 1878)
His Master's Visage
Artist: Stereo Review, October 1978
"Cool Tunes" by Clarence Brown, Saturday Review, August 1979
(This illustration accompanies an article about an LP available from Syntonics of a "Country Thunderstorm" and an "Alpine Blizzard" which dry off your brow as you listen to them patter and sough coolly in the background." (4)
Source: "Records: The Ghost of Budapest Bygone" Record review by Alan Rich, New York magazine, October 22, 1979
.![]()
Not a word!
Artist: Unknown
Media: Postcard
A cat takes the place of Nipper in this postcard that depicts a cat waiting to hear something (instead of Nipper listening to his master's voice). The card also features two double-meaning phonograph related phrases: you've 'broken the record" and "I'm winding up"
Frank and Ernest
Artist: Bob Thaves, 9-3-1988
Newspaper cartoon
His Master's Voice Mail
Artist: Mike Peters, 11-13-1993
Media: Newspaper cartoon
His Master's Voice and Company
Artist: Captain Robert Falcon Scott, c.1901
Courtesy: grammophone.ch
"Their Master's Voice," ©Michael Sowa
![]()
Advertising Revealed
Artist: Hillary B. Price, November 23, 2003
His Master's Vice
Artist: Unknown, c.1905
This postcard is one of many Nipper parodies that removed the "o" in "Voice," to create "His Master's Vice." Many of these cards featured Nipper and the whiskey bottle. This card actually depicts multiple vices. But since Nipper represented the "World's Greatest Music," isn't it natural that these other vices would join Nipper to complete the trilogy of "Wine, Women and Song?"
Color Management for Photographers
Artist: Unknown, c. 2005
Media: Bookcover
A Nipper-like dog watches and listens to music on a computer...the new master of the 21st century.
.
His Master's Voice
Media: Color postcard shaped like Nipper c.2005
Master Your MusicArtist: Unknown, 2006
Media: PC Magazine, August 22, 2006
Homage to Nipper, listening to an Apple video iPod
Old Records Go In, CDs Come Out
Artist: Stuart Goldenberg, 2006
Media: Newspaper illustration (New York Times August 17)
January 26, 2007 Courtesy of Royston Robertson for the cover of Prospect magazine
January 9, 2008 Courtesy of Royston Robertson
March 2008 Courtesy of Royston Robertson for the cover of Prospect magazine
June 30, 2009 Courtesy of Royston Robertson
.Pathe Marconi
Artist: Unknown
Media: Advertisement reprint on canvas, 8" x 10"
Amazon and Nipper, June 2016
![]()
Dog in Car sticker 4" x 4" from Kanazawa Phonograph Museum, Ishikawa, Japan - gift of Peter and Joellen Lippett 2019
Dog's Dinner by Pete McKee from his Thud, Crackle, Pop 2016 collection - Print available for purchase
Radio Apocalypse, Alternate Cover Art by Megan Hutchison-Cates, 2021 Issue No. 1
For Additional Nipper Parodies in Popular Culture see The Victor Talking Machine Company
Phonographia