Ambrose Heal

Sir Ambrose Heal (September 3, 1872, Crouch End - November 15, 1959, Beaconsfield) was an English furniture designer, and businessman in the first half of the 20th century.

Heal was the great-grandson of John Harris Heal, the founder of the Heals furniture manufacturing and retail business. He attended Marlborough College and the Slade School of Art before a two year apprenticeship to a cabinetmaker in Warwick and six months working for Graham and Biddle, furnishers, of Oxford Street.

In 1893 he joined Heal & Son, working in the bedding factory, but in the mid-1890s he began designing simple, sturdy furniture, often in plain oak (in contrast to Heals' standard "Queen Anne" and "Old English" styles). His designs were unpopular with both sales staff and craftsmen, who called them "prison furniture", but they found a place at exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts movement. He was a founding member of the Design and Industries Association, which attempted to bring Arts and Crafts aesthetic values to industrial production.

In 1913, on the death of his father, he was elected chairman of Heals, using this position to champion artistic design within furniture manufacture and marketing. In 1933, he was knighted for raising standards of design, and in 1939 was appointed a royal designer for industry.

Although Heals continued to produce beds and mattresses as its staple, Heal diversified its range to include ceramics, glass, and textiles, as well as products in Art Deco style. He established an art gallery at the Tottenham Court Road premises showing works by Picasso, Wyndham Lewis and Modigliani. Artists such as Claud Lovat Fraser designed the company's posters, and its catalogues contained essays by influential art critics. The overall effect was to promote Heals as an iconic brand.

Heal's influence over the company diminished in the mid-1930s, when one of his sons became managing director. Although considering retirement, he stayed as chairman during World War II, finally retiring in 1953.

Apart from work interests, he collected London historical ephemera, mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, including records of tradesmen, goldsmiths, calligraphers, signboards and furniture makers.

Heal was married twice: in 1895 to Alice Rose Rippingille (d. 1901), and in 1904 to Edith Florence Digby Todhunter (d. 1946). He also had affairs in the 1920s with Prudence Maufe and Dodie Smith.

His "Times" obituary describes him as "one of the great artists and craftsmen of his time". The "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" article by Alan Crawford describes this as "very wide of the mark" and accounts of his life and work as prone to hagiography, "but it showed what a powerful image he had created for his shop, and thus for himself".

References

*Sir Ambrose Heal An Outstanding Craftsman, "The Times", London, Nov 17, 1959.
*Alan Crawford, "Heal, Sir Ambrose (1872–1959)", "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33786 accessed 12 Aug 2007]

External links

* [http://www.millineryworks.co.uk/pages/Furnitureexhibitions_Heals2.htm 'Better Furniture For Better Times' - Ambrose Heal and the Heal's Style] , online exhibition, The Millinery Works Gallery