Andrea Tippel was born 1945 in Hirsau/Black Forest, and grew up as the middle of three sisters in Bremen. Her parents were the architects Maria Alexandra Mahlberg and Klaus Tippel. In 1969 she was a state-certified actress (Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna and Berlin), then studied philosophy and psychology in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. In 1971 Tippel moved to Berlin and started to create drawings, objects, composites, texts and books, as well as a few oil paintings. In 1974 she had her first exhibition with Tomas Schmit, started to produce artist books in 1980, and editions for various galleries from 1987. She main- tained close friendships with Suzanne Baumann, Henriette van Egten, Ludwig Gosewitz,
Dorothy Iannone,
Dieter Roth, Tomas Schmit, Jan Voss and Emmett Williams. Tippel was appointed as a professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg in 1997, and co-founded the Dieter Roth Academy (DRA) in 2000. She passed away in 2012 in Berlin.
