As part of Heal's 200, we have has replaced the old ‘sign of the four poster’ with a faithful reproduction.
Once considered a modern logo, the emblem now acts as a symbol of our heritage and reminds us how much tastes and styles have changed over the last two hundred years. The new sign now hangs proudly outside our flagship store on Tottenham Court Road, celebrating the fact that the Fitzrovia location has been our home for two centuries. -
Heal’s and the Four Poster Bed
From the as early as the 19th century, Heal’s was to become synonymous with the symbol of the four-poster bed. Heal’s itself started as a bedding manufacturer and was the first retailer to introduce French-style feather-filled mattresses to London. From the 1840s, a Heal’s bed was regarded by the middle classes as the best that money could buy. Innovative from the outset, John Harris Heal, the founder of Heal’s, bought advertising space in Charles Dickens’ novels that were issued in monthly shilling parts.
Heal & Son promoted its French mattresses in the Pickwick Papers. Despite poor initial sales, Dickens’ 1836 novel catapulted to fame, becoming the publishing sensation of the century. Heal & Son was one of the first companies to see the advertising potential and made regular appearances. Adverts became larger and more elaborate, eventually taking the shape of expensive full-page notices promoting the company’s bedroom furniture.
Full page Heal's advertisements in Charles Dickens' novels Ambrose Heal, John Harris’ grandson, joined the family business in 1893. One of his earliest contributions was to adopt a recognisable corporate identity, long before the concept was commonplace amongst retailers.
He settled upon a four poster bed with a chequered border which went on to feature on marketing material in various versions all the way through to 1984. A sign was erected outside the Tottenham Court Road store in the 1920s and became known as meeting place for Londoners, akin to the clock at Waterloo station.
“At the sign of the four poster” became the ideal spot to meet for a first date. It was taken down several years ago to preserve the original but can currently be found inside the Tottenham Court Road store.
The original Sign of the Four Poster
The new Sign of the Four Poster
As part of our Heal’s 200 celebrations, a new sign has been made by the West London charity, the Goldfinger Factory. Featuring the iconic four poster insignia, the sign is true to the original but reflects Heal’s today – '195' has been replaced with '196' to reflect our up to date address and its frame commemorates our 200th year.
Hanna Sunny Whaler reproducing the Sign of the Four Poster We asked Hanna Sunny Whaler, a sign painter and illustrator, to take on the task of producing the new sign. As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting up and coming talent, Hana was the perfect choice.
She designs and creates signage by hand from beginning to end using traditional techniques and tricks of the trade that have been passed down the generations. Having graduated from Falmouth University in 2014, she moved to Bristol and travelled as a sole trader around the South West.
She recently relocated to South East London and works from her studio and on-location for a wide variety of clients within the city and beyond its borders.
The new Sign of the Four Poster
You can see the new sign in all its glory at our Tottenham Court Road store where it has now taken up its permanent position outside our flagship.
[ INSPIRATION ]
At Heal's
The Heal's Building after Edward Maufe's extension in 1937 We’re telling the tale of our flagship store, an iconic building that is recognised the world over.
However, what is lesser known is that Heal’s has been a feature of the Tottenham Court Road landscape for a staggering 200 years. Here’s the story of how our reign came to be.
Humble Beginnings
The year is 1810. Beethoven has composed Fur Elis and Jane Austen is putting the finishing touches on her first novel, Sense & Sensibility. Meanwhile, John Harris Heal decides to establish Heal & Son, a feather-dressing business that brings French-style feather-filled mattresses to the masses.
A short while later in 1818, John Harris Heal relocates his feather-dressing business from its original location on Rathbone Place to 203 Tottenham Court Road, marking the beginning of an epic 200-year journey of retail and design on Tottenham Court Road.
The Heal's Building 1854 In contrast to the bustling, metropolitan place that it is today, the site was a primarily rural location and the lease even stipulated there must be appropriate accommodation for 40 cows.
After John’s death in 1833, his widow, Fanny Heal, preserved with the family business, renamed the firm Fanny Heal & Son, Bedding Manufacturers, and moved the premises in 1840 to the current site at 196 Tottenham Court Road.
A New Era
After a period of substantial growth, Heal’s needed more retail and workshop space. In 1854, architect James Morant Lockyer – an authority on the Italian Renaissance period – designed a new building in Venetian Palazzo style to incorporate 186-198 Tottenham Court Road. The new Heal’s shop became one of the largest in London.
The Heal's Building 1916 Since then the building has continued to evolve. In 1916, the original building was demolished to make way for a modern store for modern times. Cecil Brewer, Ambrose Heal’s cousin and best friend, was tasked with designing the new flagship.
He also installed the iconic Cecil Brewer staircase, now known as the most photographed staircase in London, which spirals up through the back of the store.
A few years later in 1937, architect Sir Edward Maufe added an impressive southern extension which included a multi-storey Lenscrete vertical window, inspired by his design for Guildford Cathedral.
An original advertising illustration from 1937 showing transport links to the store following its extension designed by Edward Maufe.
An Ever-Evolving Building
Ever since, Heal’s has continued to house some of the world’s most famous designers and furniture brands, cementing itself as a British retail institution.
Our heritage is displayed proudly on the store front, with a series of blue and gold plaques that highlight the crafts through which Heal's has made its name — metalwork, pottery, bedding makers, to name a few.
We’ve become an enduring presence on London’s ‘Furniture Street’ and while we are joined by a number of other prestigious retailers, no one’s roots are buried as deep as ours. Heal's has witnessed the reign of seven monarchs, three turns of the century, and two world wars.
The Heal's building being used to make parachutes during the Second World War In fact, the Heal’s building played a vital role in the World War II.
As historian James Taylor explains, “A dramatic rise in consumer expenditure was interrupted by the Second World War. Heal’s, like so many companies, turned from the manufacture of goods for civilian consumption in peacetime to producing the military equipment needed in a war for Britain’s survival.”
The Workshops on the upper floors were used by machinists for making parachutes for the Ministry of Aircraft Production. By the summer of 1940, space was so tight that the operation spread beyond the workshops into the showrooms, with more sewing machines set up to cope with the demand.
The Next 200 Years
The Heal's Building today
Over the last two centuries, the landscape of London has changed drastically yet the presence of Heal’s has remained constant.
We’ve welcomed millions of people from all over the world through our doors and, with plans for Tottenham Court Road to become increasingly pedestrianized, we plan to welcome millions more over the next 200 years.
A new and exciting exhibition has come to London. The Tate Modern is staging the largest UK retrospective of Amedeo Modigliani’s work – one hundred portraits, including some of his best, painted over the 14 years that Modigliani lived in Paris.
Known for his pictorial style and elongated forms, it comes as a surprise that Modigliani met little success in his brief 35 years. Born in Italy, he packed up his easel and moved to Paris in 1906 and settled in Le Bateau-Lavoir, a commune for penniless artists in Montmartre.
He transformed himself from a dapper academician artist into a sort of prince of vagabonds, his distaste for his own bourgeois upbringing growing with every passing day. He suffered from poor health throughout his short life, which was often exacerbated by his self-destructive habits, and when he died from tuberculosis in 1920 at the age of 35, his art had never found financial success.
He only ever had one solo show as an artist which was closed down by the police and labelled as 'obscene'. His nudes were too shocking and controversial for audiences of the time. Skip ahead a few decades and the story is much different.
Described as emotionally intense and seductive, his nudes are among the best-loved paintings of the 20th century. In 2015 one of his nude paintings, Nu Couche, which depicts a reclining naked woman, sold for $170.4 million.
Nu Couche, painted in 1917-1918, sold for $170.4 million in 2015
What is lesser known is that that Modigliani actually made his UK debut at the Heal’s Tottenham Court Road store in 1919. Sir Ambrose Heal, the then chairman of the business, had a true passion for art, design and retail. It led him to open Heal’s very own art gallery – known as The Mansard Gallery – on the fourth floor of the building in 1917.
Having socialised within artistic circles for many years, Ambrose was able to use his connections to bring some of the world’s best artists to his space. In 1919, writer and poet Sacheverell Sitwell curated the Exhibition of Modern French Art. Held at The Mansard Gallery, it brought the likes to Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and, of course, Amedeo Modigliani to the British public for the first time.
We still have record of the poster advertising the exhibition. Designed by William Roberts, the composition sees a group of stylised figures viewed from a high perspective set against a yellow background.
The poster advertising The Exhibition of French Art at the Mansard Gallery
Modigliani displayed Le Petit Paysan (The Little Peasant), a painting that is said to largely have been influenced by the later works of Cezanne where country workers posed centrally in the canvas and painted predominantly in blue tones.
In his preface to the exhibition’s catalogue, writer Arnold Bennett described the exhibition as ‘the first of its kind since the war, and the best of its kind since the celebrated exhibition at the Grafton Galleries many years ago.”
The exhibition was widely praised by modernist critics such as Roger Fry who, upon seeing the show, commented ‘what innumerable different version, one can enjoy in this gallery!’
Le Petit Paysan (The Little Peasant) painted in 1918
Others were less impressed by the new style of paintings on show. Literary giant Evelyn Waugh later referred to the daring modern forms in his 1939 short story Work Suspended as ‘those vague assemblages of picnic litter which used to cover the walls of the Mansard Gallery in the early twenties.’
Despite the criticism, Modigliani has become one of the most cherished artists of the modernist movement. Ambrose’s championing of the struggling artist reinforces what has come to be synonymous with the beloved chairman - that he really was ahead of his time in every aspect of his life.
Modigliani is on at the Tate Modern until 2nd April 2018.
Sir Ambrose Heal (1872- 1959) was a designer, retailer and influential figure whose time at the helm of Heal’s put the firm at the centre of design and retail innovation in Britain.
Chairman of Heal's from 1913-1953, a number of his Arts & Crafts designs feature as part of our Heal's 100 exhibition alongside contemporary furniture inspired by his legacy. To better tell the story of Ambrose and his lasting impact on Heal's, we spoke to his grandson Oliver, who describes the many sides to his multi-talented forbear.
“Ambrose Heal joined the family firm in 1883, after serving a two-year apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker. Strongly influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, much of his work was based on his study of antique furniture.“
Ambrose’s approach to life and work was one of integrity and based on his firm belief that it was his mission to improve the design of the objects with which we surround ourselves.
In the words of Gordon Russell: ‘His outlook was not just a fashion of the moment, It was a deeply felt way of life with him and affected everything he did.’”
Heal’s 100: 347 Suite Tall Boy by Ambrose Heal (1902).
"An early Ambrose Heal tall boy in quartersawn oak and inlaid with ebony and boxwood in chequer stringing. This is a rare example from the Heal’s bedroom suite ‘347’ from 1902, illustrated in Oliver Heal’s book, Sir Ambrose Heal and the Heal Cabinet Factory. interestingly, it is labelled inside with a name and the date 1907, which is probably that of the original owner."
Magnus Englund, Heal's 100 Curator.
An original line drawing and specification sheet for an Ambrose Heal design, circa 1900s.
“Ambrose married Rose Rippingille in his early twenties and they had a son, Cecil Ambrose, Sadly, Rosie died in 1900 and Cecil was killed on the front line in 1916. By then, Ambrose has remarried, to Edith Florence Digby Todhunter, although he never fully recovered from his grief. “ Despite his reluctance to be involved in public life, his contributions were recognised by his contemporaries, who elected him to the Art Workers Guild and the Society of Antiquaries. He was also honoured to receive the Royal Society of Arts’ gold Albert Medal, elected to the select new group of the Royal Designers for Industry and received his knighthood in 1933 for services to industrial design.”
Heal’s was to become synonymous with the symbol of the four-poster bed, thanks to Ambrose Heal’s introduction of this distinctive logo. This sign hung outside the Tottenham Court Road building for a number of decades and is now on display inside.
“The skill of the retail merchant is more ephemeral than the furniture that he sells, yet Ambrose’s talent in this area was perhaps even more crucial to the reputation of the business. With typical pedantry, he insisted that ‘a store is a place where you keep things; a shop is a place where you sell things’, so the Tottenham Court Road premises were always referred to as ‘the shop’ and he was proud to be a shopkeeper.
“To attract customers, Heal’s needed to stand out from the Ordinary, this meant that every detail was given careful consideration. First of all, the merchandise had to meet high aesthetic and quality standards, in keeping with William Morris’s golden dictum: ‘Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’”
Heal’s 100: Owl Cabinet by Ambrose Heal (1920s).
"This limed oak Tall Boy is a much-loved design, affectionately known as the 'Owl Cabinet' because of the distinctive large roundels to the top cupboard, giving it an owl-like appearance.
With four large drawers under the top cupboard, it remains a practical and attractive storage unit for today, amazing considering it was introduced before the First World War and continued in production until the end of the 1920s." Magnus Englund, Heal's 100 Curator.
This wartime sales leaflet was distributed to Heal's customers around 1917 and is an example of Ambrose's pioneering approach to marketing.
“Merchandising deemed good enough to be on the premises was displayed imaginatively, then promoted with advertising and graphics that reflected the assiduously developed house style, using copywriting that spoke to an intelligent, cultivated customer. The adoption of a recognisable corporate identity through the four-poster logo and the chequered border around advertisements, was one of his earliest contributions - long before the concept was commonplace.
“Crucial to Ambrose Heal’s success was the team of people he assembled around him, at a time when shop staff were generally poorly treated and held in low esteem. He recognised the need for people who shared his vision, fostering a strong team spirit by showing respect for the individuals he employed. But Ambrose did not tolerate fools or slovenly work and insisted on things being how he wanted. His baleful stare reduced many to size.”
Oliver Heal
Heal's 100: Pinner Four-Poster Bed by Kirsty Whyte (2015).
"Heal’s has a long and proud history of selling four-poster beds. The Pinner bed, named after Sir Ambrose Heal’s hometown, has a pragmatic Arts & Crafts elegance combined with undeniable modernity. It features a low mattress and raised headboard and is finished in Atlantic Blue, the colour today more widely seen as the new neutral."
Magnus Englund, Heal's 100 Curator.
Discover the history of Ambrose, Heal’s and British design by visiting Our Heritage page or the Heal’s 100 exhibition on display at our Tottenham Court Road store from 8th May – 11th June.
You can also shop a selected range of pieces from the collection here.
Always at the forefront of design, the major part Heal’s played introducing modernism to British homes is one that is too often overlooked, underplayed or plain ignored.
To make amends for this crime against design history, we bring together key pieces from our Heal’s 100 exhibition to tell the story of modernist furniture in Britain. It’s a common misconception that modernism did not grab a foothold on these shores until after the austerity of the Second World War.
However, one look at a Heal’s catalogue from the 1930s shows that, from art deco to the Bauhaus, cutting edge furniture design was already commonplace at the Tottenham Court Road store.
Speaking on the link between Heal's and modernism in Britain, Heal’s 100 curator Magnus Englund has said: “What was interesting with the product was to see how on trend Heal’s has been through the years.
They were the place to go for Arts & Crafts but they also embraced Modernism and quite a stark modernism early on in the late 1920s and early 1930s with black gloss paint and tubular steel, which wasn’t to everyone’s taste at the time.
Then from the 1950s onwards Scandinavian design, which is where I come from and is my background."
Art-Deco Chromium-plated Desk by Heal’s Design Studio (1930s)
A major departure from the solid wood, Arts & Crafts furniture for which Heal’s was renowned, this desk is a prime example of Ambrose Heal’s (Director of the business from 1913-1953) willingness to promote the best of modern design. Sadly, such a daring new direction was not to everyone's taste as the outspoken art critic and anarchist Herbert
Read made clear at the time: “Ambrose has become more modish and Mayfairish, always at the expense of logical design.” Of course, what Mr. Read failed to grasp was how ahead of its time this piece really was.
In an age long before the laptop-based home office, the desk provided an efficient workstation for those limited on space (sound familiar?) Finished in eau-de-nil lacquer, the vogue for any art deco inspired home, it features an Ivorine Heal & Son disc on the inside of the top drawer.
Dodie Wardrobe by Ambrose Heal for Heal’s (1932)
Sir Ambrose Heal designed the Dodie bedroom suite, which includes this inlaid wardrobe, for his mistress Dodie Smith, a shop worker who later became an author and penned children’s favourite The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
Dodie was a key character at Heal’s during the 1920s and 1930s, where she ran the toy department among other responsibilities. The wardrobe itself is typical of the art deco style that emerged from Paris in the 1920s and would become a hugely popular interiors movement throughout Western Europe during the 1930s.
Heal’s was an early adopter of deco as exhibited by the Dodie Wardrobe and other Ambrose designed pieces such as the Roman Chair (1933), both of which are now part of the Victoria & Albert Museum furniture collections.
Modernist Cocktail Cabinet by Heal’s Design Studio (1933)
Renowned for its innovative approach to marketing, the company launched a catalogue entitled ‘Heal’s Economy Furniture 1932 and All That’ to help boost sales and survive the Great Depression. It was, however, the following year when Heal’s really started to make waves.
Taking a step in the Bauhaus direction, the ‘Economy with a Difference at Heal’s - 1933’ catalogue took the bold step of introducing British homes to new chromium-plated steel furniture. An interesting piece with clear industrial overtones, this sleekly designed cocktail cabinet features a smaller drawer that appears to be divorced from the main unit. Finished in black lacquered solid wood that sits within an angular metal frame, inside one finds all the accoutrements needed for stylish cocktail making (this is the glamorous 1930s after all).
CH25 Chair by Hans J. Wegner for Carl Hansen (1950)
Heal’s practice of sending buyers to the continent to visit trade fairs and suppliers led to the firm specialising in imports. The store went on to gain a reputation for being an early adopter of contemporary European brands and designer, one that it still holds to this day.
Danish furniture designer Hans J. Wegner made more than 500 different chairs during the course of his life including this one. A stunning example of Scandinavian solid wood furniture (or ‘Norwegian Wood’ as the Beatles famously dubbed it) each CH25 Chair is still handmade in Denmark to this day.
Such is the lineage of this chair that it has been featured in two advertising campaigns by Heal’s: one for ‘Scandinavian Furniture’ from the 1950s, and more recently in 2015.
To learn more about the story of Heal’s and its role in 20th-century design, visit Our Heritage page.
Duncan Grant's bedroom at Charleston, the Bloomsbury Group’s infamous farmhouse retreat. Photo courtesy of Penelope Fewster, Charleston Trust.
Speaking on the Bloomsbury Group, the writer Dorothy Parker famously quipped that they “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles”.
Over a century on and their liberal approach to love, life and the arts continues to make genteel society go hot under the collar. Yet, for all the TV dramas and notes on a scandal, it is the groundbreaking art and design for which the group should really be remembered.
From the recent Sussex Modernism exhibition at Two Temple Place to Dulwich Picture Gallery’s current Vanessa Bell retrospective, the last few months have seen a resurgence in interest in the Bloomsbury Group’s expressionistic style.
So with our very own Heal’s 100 exhibition currently on display at the Tottenham Court Road store, what better time to share some of the stories that bind this infamous social set with Heal’s.
This closeup shot taken in the dining room of Charleston House gives a feel for the abstract, expressionist style so synonymous with Vanessa Bell's art and design. Photo courtesy of Penelope Fewster, Charleston Trust.
Intellectual, spiritual and physical bedfellows, the Bloomsbury Group started innocently enough as a gathering of friends with core members including the artists Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant, writers E.M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, and the economist John Maynard Keynes.
The group would meet in London’s Bloomsbury, hence the name, in between their studies at Trinity College, Cambridge and by 1905 were holding exhibitions of their paintings and literature as part of the “Friday Club”.
The Bloomsbury Group quickly became a feature of the bourgeois art scene of Fitzrovia and could regularly be spotted at the Mansard Gallery on the fourth floor of the Heal’s building. For this was one of the few places in the country where one could see the latest contemporary art from Europe including works by Picasso, Modigliani and Bloomsbury associate Wyndham Lewis.
HEAL’S 100: Omega Workshop rug by Duncan Grant (1913-15)
“This rug is symbolic of Heal’s support of the arts. Sir Ambrose Heal had a keen interest in fine art and his involvement with painting and drawing paralleled his development as a designer, manufacturer and retailer. In 1917, he opened the Mansard gallery within heal’s Tottenham Court Road Store, with exhibitions showing the work of artists including Modigliani for the first time in the UK. The top floor gallery naturally became a regular haunt of the Bloomsbury Group with this rug designed by principal member Duncan Grant for the Omega Workshop.”
Magnus Englund, Curator of the Heal’s 100 and Director of the Isokon Gallery Trust
A selection of furniture designed by Roger Fry for the Omega Workshop, circa 1913-1919.
Founded in 1913, the Omega Workshop provided an industrial output for the Bloomsbury Group’s expressionist takes on home furnishings. While all designs were anonymous, signed simply with an ‘O’, the majority of pieces were created by the businesses founders Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, who not only produced furniture but also ceramics, book covers and dress fabrics.
Despite the workshop being located just around the corner from Heal’s in Fitzroy Square, it would seem that such decorative design was too much even for the innovative tastes of Ambrose Heal, not to mention the public, with the business going into liquidation in 1919.
Thankfully, all is not lost, for those who wish to experience the Bloomsbury Group’s unique style of interior decor can simply pay a visit to Charleston House in the South Down’s. Home to Clive and Vanessa Bell, the country retreat was, for a time, the centre of the set’s universe past Fitzrovia and is painted from top to bottom with post-impressionist motifs.
HEAL’S 100: Trees Fabric by Cressida Bell for Heal’s 1810 (2014)
“Cressida Bell is an artist and designer of fine lineage. The daughter of critic, author and artist Quentin Bell, the granddaughter of Vanessa Bell and great-niece of Virginia Woolf, she is understandably influenced by her family's background in the Bloomsbury group. She has, however, also developed her own individual style, which is more meticulous and less painterly.
In 2014, Cressida created the immensely popular Trees fabric for Heal’s as part of the Heal’s 1810 range, the first collection of exclusively designed fabrics from the retailers since the 1970s.” Magnus Englund, Curator of the Heal’s 100 and Director of the Isokon Gallery Trust
Details of Clive Bell's, husband of Vanessa Bell, bedroom at Charleston House. Photo courtesy of Penelope Fewster, Charleston Trust.
To discover more stories from the Heal’s 100, an exhibition showcasing the 100 best items sold at Heal’s in the last century, visit our Tottenham Court Road store or browse the collection online.
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