Alfred Henry Tipper (12 July 18672 April 1944), also known by the pseudonyms Professor Tipper and H.D. (reported to be an initialism for Henry Dearing or Harold Deering), was an Australian

showman Showman can have a variety of meanings, usually by context and depending on the country. Australia Travelling showmen are people who run amusement and side show equipment at regional shows, state capital shows, events and festivals througho ...

, competitive and endurance cyclist, and

outsider artist Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates e ...

. His combined interests in mechanics, fitness and entertainment led to a long career as a trick cyclist and builder of miniature bicycles. Following his death, Tipper's artistic abilities were recognised by the Australian painter Albert Tucker, who promoted Tipper's paintings in the

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

art and literary magazine ''

Angry Penguins ''Angry Penguins'' was an art and literary journal founded in 1940 by surrealist poet Max Harris, at the age of 18. Originally based in Adelaide, the journal moved to Melbourne in 1942 once Harris joined the Heide Circle, a group of avant-garde p ...

''.

Life

Tipper was born on 12 July 1867 in the regional

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

n city of Sale to Thomas Tipper and his Irish-born wife Catherine. When he was two years old, Tipper was abandoned by his parents and raised as a

ward of the state In law, a ward is a minor or incapacitated adult placed under the protection of a legal guardian or government entity, such as a court. Such a person may be referenced as a "ward of the court". Overview The wardship jurisdiction is an ancient jur ...

.Browne, Geoff (2002)
'Tipper, Alfred Henry (1867–1944)'

Australian Dictionary of Biography The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...

, Volume 16.

Melbourne University Press Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. History MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text books and stationery to students, and soon began publishing books itself. ...

. Retrieved 14 November 2011. In 1874, the ''

Maitland Mercury The ''Maitland Mercury'' is Australia's third oldest regional newspaper, preceded only by the ''Geelong Advertiser'' (estab. 1840) and the ''Launceston Examiner'' (estab. 1842). The ''Maitland Mercury'' was established in 1843 when it was called ...

'' reported Tipper as living in the harbourside

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

suburb of

Woolloomooloo Woolloomooloo ( ) is a harbourside, inner-city eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Woolloomooloo is 1.5 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is in a low ...

; the young boy received attention in the press after discovering the body of a dead infant in a Belmore park. Later, he found employment at a dairy farm and developed considerable knowledge of mechanics, and in the 1880s took to the new sport of competitive cycling. In 1896, Tipper rode on a penny-farthing from Sydney to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

(roughly 900 km), carrying with him a 32 kg swag. This inspired him to ride around the world, and over the next six years Tipper took his "singing and comedy cycling act" to crowds across Britain and the United States. One routine involved him riding a custom-built 13 cm-high bicycle while singing the folk song "From the Highlands and the Lowlands". By the 1930s, Tipper was part-owner of a bicycle repair shop in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

, Melbourne, and toured Australia regularly with his large collection of bikes. Known by his nickname "Professor Tipper", he sported a long white beard and advocated for a "rational" dress sense of thin shirts and knickerbockers. He also attempted to build a pedal-powered aeroplane. Tipper lived his final years in squalor on a vacant allotment opposite

Brunswick Town Hall Brunswick Town Hall is located on the corner of Sydney Road and Dawson Street in the inner northern Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, Victoria, Australia. History Brunswick was declared a municipality in 1857, after residents petitioned for muni ...

, where he erected a makeshift shelter from the body of an old motorcar. Despite these hardships, his passion for cycling and "unique capacity for self-advertising" remained undimmed. He died on 2 April 1944 at

Royal Melbourne Hospital The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), located in Parkville, Victoria, an inner suburb of Melbourne, is one of Australia's leading public hospitals. It is a major teaching hospital for tertiary health care with a reputation in clinical research. Th ...

and was buried in

Fawkner Cemetery Fawkner Memorial Park is located in the north-western Melbourne suburb of Fawkner, Victoria, Australia. It is the largest cemetery by land size in the state, and managed by Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust. Merlynston Creek, a tributary ...

Art

Tipper produced several postcards and oil paintings documenting his cycling achievements. After he died, five of his paintings were salvaged and displayed in the window of a bicycle shop on

Swanston Street Swanston Street is a major thoroughfare in the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is one of the main streets of the Melbourne central business district and was laid out in 1837 as part of the original Hoddle Grid. The street vertically ...

. They were spotted by the young Melbourne modernist painter Albert Tucker, who greatly admired the works'

naïve Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A ''naïve'' may b ...

boldness, painterly qualities, and unique treatment of the Australian countryside. Tucker acquired one of the large unframed canvases (signed "H.D.") and pinned it up in his

East Melbourne East Melbourne is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Melbourne local government area. East Melbourne recorded a population of 4,896 at the 2021 ...

terrace house. In the December 1944 issue of ''

'', Tucker wrote that H.D.'s paintings bore "the unmistakable mark of the natural artist ... a startling sense of life expressed through an unfaltering sense of form, pattern, texture and colour, with the anecdotal eye of the traditional " primitive"".Burke, Janine. ''Australian Gothic: a Life of Albert Tucker''.

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, 2003. , p. 233 Tucker, a self-taught artist (like other Angry Penguins members such as

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

and

John Perceval John de Burgh Perceval AO (1 February 1923 – 15 October 2000) was a well-known Australian artist. Perceval was the last surviving member of a group known as the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s. Other members include ...

), saw H.D. as an example of an artist who hadn't the "disadvantage of training in some socially endorsed art style". Only after the publication of H.D.'s work in ''Angry Penguins'' and inclusion in group exhibitions run by the Contemporary Art Society was the artist's true identity discovered. Tipper's paintings are now held in major galleries including the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

and

Heide Museum of Modern Art The Heide Museum of Modern Art, also known as Heide, is an art museum in Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1981, the museum houses modern and contemporary art across three distinct exhibition buildings and is set ...

, and his art formed part of the 2005 touring exhibition ''Raw and Compelling: Australian Naïve Art''.Raw and compelling: Australian naive art: a Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery travelling exhibition
nla.gov.au. Retrieved 15 November 2011.

Life

Art

See also

References

Further reading