Black and white photograph of a woman carrying a tray or drinks outside. She is standing in an open door at the top of some stairs. Outside is a man sitting on a bench, there are garden tools visible in the image and both people are smiling towards the camera.

FHK Henrion and Daphne Hardy Henrion in the garden of their home in Hampstead, c.1947. Photograph by Anneli Bunyard, courtesy Estate of Anneli Bunyard.

 

“This beautifully shot film opens the doors to the interior worlds of FHK and Daphne Henrion. By capturing their working and domestic circumstances, we are taken into the inner sanctum of two people who both inspired and reflected the key aesthetic trends of mid-20th century Britain.”  Dan Carrier, Camden New Journal

We are pleased to announce the completion of a new short documentary film by Design Archives Director Dr Sue Breakell and design historian Dr Harriet Atkinson, both members of the University of Brighton’s Centre for Design History.  The fifteen-minute documentary Designing from Home centres on the house where renowned graphic designer FHK Henrion (1914-1990) lived and worked in Hampstead, North London. It follows Atkinson’s film Art on the Streets (2023) made as part of an AHRC-funded Leadership Fellowship.

Watch the Trailer.

The film focuses on the meanings of home for Henrion, a German-Jewish émigré who arrived in London in 1936, having fled Germany for Paris in 1933.  He lived at various temporary addresses across London as he established his career as a consultant designer and cemented it through work on wartime propaganda projects for the UK Ministry of Information, before moving to the house in 1947 with his first wife, sculptor Daphne Hardy Henrion (1917-2003) and raising their three children Max, Paul and Emma there. Here the Henrions negotiated work and family life, as he built his career from solo consultant designer to a group design practice, while Daphne juggled domestic responsibilities with her own creative practice, which included work for the Festival of Britain (1951) and new urban development schemes.  Henrion lived at the house until his death in 1990, and from 1970 with his second wife Marion Wesel Henrion and her son Tom. Marion Henrion, who died in 2023, became closely involved with the administration of the business, a busy office with multiple employees, operating alongside the family home.

Designing from Home draws on little-seen original material from Henrion’s archive, held at the Design Archives, as well as interviews with Henrion’s four children, filmed in the extraordinary house which was the family home for almost 80 years. The documentary was made with Banyak Films, and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the University of Brighton School of Art & Media and School of Humanities & Social Science, and the Centre for Design History.

Designing from Home will be screened initially through events at cultural, heritage and education institutions and at documentary film festivals. In the longer term it will be available online via this website.

Details of screenings will be shared here and via our social media.

Public screenings:

Isokon Gallery, Hampstead, 20 November 2025

Keats Memorial Library, Hampstead, 27 November 2025

 

More about the Henrion Archive

Two cameramen are filming a woman and a man who are holding a poster, the poster is out of view. They are in a room with bookshelves and planchests lining the walls.

Filming at the house with Emma and Paul Henrion, 2024. Photograph by Harriet Atkinson