June 7, 2005
The dog days come early to Moorestown
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Township celebrates Nipper with 30 statues

By Rusty Pray

Inquirer Staff Writer

The dog show that has hit Moorestown features just one breed, but it is a breed covered in coats of many fantastic colors.

Thirty Nippers - the famous terrier who listens with head cocked smartly as his master's voice comes out of a gramophone - were put on display yesterday in front of businesses and town landmarks as part of a benefit artists' competition.

The range of colors is wide, and themes run the gamut from sentimental to whimsical.

One Nipper's body is a field of sunflowers; another depicts the history of Moorestown.

There's an Uncle Sam, complete with beard and gray bushy eyebrows, and a Superman. One, called Leader of the Pack, stands in front of the Community House on Main Street, sporting a pompadour, shades, and a tattoo of a gramophone.

"They are just amazing," said Virginia Devery, director of development for the Evergreens retirement home and a member of the organizing committee.

Nipper, first used as a trademark for the Victor Talking Machine Co. of Camden and later RCA, has close ties to Moorestown. Eldridge Johnson, who founded Victor, was a resident for many years.

The project enlisted artists, schools and other groups to decorate the fiberglass Nipper statues, which, including the base, stand 6 feet tall.

Decorators had until Nov. 12 to submit as many as three designs, and then a committee chose the ones to be displayed. Qualifying artists were notified in January and were paid $1,000 each to defray costs.

The dogs will remain on display until mid-September, and then will be moved to the Moorestown Mall, where they will be auctioned Oct. 9. Proceeds will be split evenly among the Lutheran Home, a retirement home that once was Johnson's residence; the Moorestown Community House, built by Johnson in 1926; the Evergreens; the Moorestown Historical Society; and the Perkins Center for the Arts.

This isn't the first time dogs have been displayed in the region. Upper and Lower Merion Townships, on the Main Line, did it in 2002.

Yesterday on Moorestown's Main Street, resident Terry DiBlasio stopped to look at a Nipper dedicated to songbirds found in South Jersey backyards.

"They're very interesting," she said of the statues. She said she planned to "bring my kids back and have their pictures taken" with the dogs.

Rosemari Dominiano's Nipper is just down Main at Church Street. It is called Philadelphia Nipper for a reason: Dominiano was once a resident of the city's Mayfair section. She lives in Pennsauken now.

The statue features stained-glass depictions of Philly landmarks and icons, such as the Art Museum, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the LOVE statue, rowhouses, and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

"The Nipper thing is the first big art thing I've ventured into," Dominiano said.