Heal’s Posters: Advertising Modernism

A survey by Nicklaus Pevsner in the 1930s estimated that some 80-90% of manufactured goods in England were shoddy and poorly designed. When it came to furniture only a handful of manufacturers would have escaped such condemnation. Prime among these was Heals of Tottenham Court Road – manufacturer, retailer, and, with its top floor Mansard Gallery, the Mecca for Home Counties cognoscenti of ‘modernism’. Most furniture manufacturers advertised their wares in the press but Heal’s was a rare exception in the industry in its use of posters.

Heal’s posters not only relay the saga of a pioneering enterprise but provide a shorthand history of what was happening in the design and retailing of furniture and furnishings in Britain in the 20th century.