Heller is an American company founded in 1971 that makes and sells indoor/outdoor furniture and accessories. It is headquartered in Westport,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, United States. Its founder, Alan Heller, invited well-known architects and designers including Mario Bellini,

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

, and Lella and Massimo Vignelli to create products for the company. Examples of its furniture and houseware are exhibited in museums including the

Cooper-Hewitt Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 museums that fall under the wing of the Smithsonian Inst ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Vitra Design Museum. Its stackable Hellerware won the Italian design award, the Compasso d'Oro.

History

The company was founded in 1971 by Alan Heller. Heller's first line of products was a set of stackable dinnerware known as "Hellerware" designed by Lella and Massimo Vignelli. This design was originally manufactured in Italy and was awarded the 1964 Compasso d'Oro. Heller brought the design to America after the Italian manufacturer ceased production, and revived the product line in America. The brightly-colored Hellerware was seen as a "design classic and signified the 1970s and 1980s" alongside fashionable

Marimekko Marimekko Oyj is a Finnish textiles, clothing, and home furnishings company founded by Viljo and Armi Ratia in Helsinki in 1951. Marimekko made important contributions to fashion in the 1960s. It is particularly noted for its brightly colored pri ...

fabrics. A "large selection" of Hellerware is held in the Plastics Collection at

Syracuse University Library Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Located in the city's Uni ...

, with other examples at the

and New York's

. The "sexualised mood" of the 1960s was reflected in items such as

Studio 65 Studio 65 (''Studiosessanta5'') is an Italian architecture studio. It was founded in 1965 in Turin as an avant-garde experimental collective of architects, designers, poets and artists. Its founders were Franco Audrito, Roberta Garosci, Enzo Berton ...

's ''Bocca'' sofa (Italian for "mouth"). Resembling a large pair of red lips, it was originally named "Marilyn" after

Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic " blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as wel ...

. The designer was the architect Franco Audrito. Heller has sold it since the 1970s; it was initially made of polyurethane covered with fabric; a modern version is made of waterproof resin polymer. It is displayed in design museum collections including the Vitra Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. Heller died in 2021 and the company was subsequently purchased by John Edelman, who had known Heller well, and John McPhee. Asked what the brand represented, Edelman replied "Accessible. Iconic. Modern." and "I think Heller strikes a chord not only in architects and designers but also regular consumers when the name is mentioned. “Hellerware” was part of many people’s childhoods. There’s a huge push to bring it back." In January 2023, Heller relaunched their Vignelli Dinnerware collection at

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

Design Store, leading to its being featured by partner companies. Also in January 2023, Heller began to issue non-fungible tokens to guarantee the genuineness of their designer products such as the Vignelli rocker chair.

Awards and distinctions

The company's furniture and houseware have been described as "elegant, often whimsical but always affordable" by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', "iconic" by the business news outlet OfficeInsight, as "the cult favorite design brand" by Business of Home magazine, and as "beautiful and timeless" by Architonic. Heller's designers, described by ''Gray'' magazine as "some of the world’s most revered", include the Canadian-born architect

, who has designed brightly-colored "cube" seating for the company. The company's plastic chair designed by Mario Bellini won a Gold Medal, the ''Compasso d'Oro'', in Milan in 2001; it is exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art. The Italian designer and architect Sergio Asti's 1972 ice bucket design for Heller is exhibited in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

References

External links

Heller company website

Archival images of Hellerware
from the

Vignelli Center for Design Studies The Vignelli Center for Design Studies, established in 2010, is a college of design at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Named after the New York City based Italian designers, Massimo Vignelli, Massimo and Lella Vignelli, this 15,500 square ...

, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). {{Authority control Industrial design firms Industrial design Design companies established in 1971 Manufacturing companies established in 1971 American companies established in 1971 American brands Compasso d'Oro Award recipients

History

Awards and distinctions

References

Further reading

External links