Henry & Joyce Collins’ BHS Murals: Bringing Art to the High Street

BHS may have gone from our high streets, but its visual legacy remains across UK towns and cities in a series of striking murals by the prolific husband and wife partnership of Henry and Joyce Collins.

Much like the nature of department stores, the murals bring together a seemingly disparate assortment of goods and items. As well as incorporating the motif of a shopping basket of consumer goods in each mural, the pieces tell the story of the towns in which they’re found, using figures and imagery from local history and landscapes.

The Henry and Joyce Collins story started at Colchester School of Art in the 1930s, with the meeting of Henry Collins and Joyce Pallot. Post-war this blossomed into a productive living and working relationship, that included collaborations with artists and architects and commissions for the Festival of Britain and Expo ’70 in Japan. They set up home in the comfortable suburb of Lexden, and helped found the Colchester Art Society. Henry, a painter and designer, contributed scenes of East Anglia, and also designed posters for British Transport. Joyce, a teacher, sold work to her alma mater, the local girls’ grammar.

Both artists were born and raised in the Colchester area and did a number of public commissions across the historic town, including a large 1969 relief at the entrance to Sainsbury’s (they also did murals for Sainsbury’s in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, Gloucester, and Southampton). Their concrete medallions and mosaics decorate the underpasses leading from the town centre, past ancient St Botolph’s priory, to the suburbs, highlighting figures from Colchester’s history, from the town’s Romans origins to the physicist, physician and philosopher William Gilberd, who was born in the town.

Their 1976 work for Colchester BHS uses contrasting textures and raised, indented and carved shapes, created by pouring concrete into moulds, to great effect. The groceries of the shopping basket stand out boldly against a vibrant blue tiled background. The tradition of farming in the area is also prominent, taking place under a large East Anglian sun, as is the history of weaving and sewing: the mural depicts not just the finished product, but patterns and paraphernalia. The mural acknowledges the impact of Flemish migration on the town: the legacy can still be seen in Colchester’s quaint, hilly Dutch quarter.

Three years after ending up in a skip with the closure of the store in 2009, it was rescued, restored and resited thanks to the quick-thinking former director of contemporary art gallery First Site. The panels have been resinstalled in a passageway leading up to the gallery, and their newfound prominence has led to a campaign to restore the murals in the underpasses, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and bring their work to the attention of a new audience with films and a leaflet about their symbolism and artistic significance.

In Harlow, Essex, in 1982, the Collins designed a mural for the BHS café, sitting at the top of the escalators. Less at risk from the weather and wear and tear than the other BHS murals, it’s made from wood rather than concrete and has a naïve, child-like feel, with the objects it depicts removed from perspective and appearing to float in space. It’s also more rural in its subject matter, depicting scythes, wheatsheafs, windmills, country churches and waterways such as the River Stort navigation, as well as wildlife such as birds and sheep. The mural shows the districts of the town and its coat of arms, highlighting a visit by the Queen. Despite Harlow’s significance as a post-war new town the modernist church spire of Our Lady of Fatima stands out in a mural where little of the town’s modern townscape and Essex’s post-war suburban expansion is acknowledged. Although the mural isn’t currently visible to the public since the store’s closure, it’s hoped that it could form the centrepiece of a new art gallery in a town that still takes pride in its varied public art commissions, initiated and pursued since the post-war period.

In Newcastle, the former BHS building is now home to Primark, but Henry and Joyce Collins’ 1974 panels depicting Newcastle through the Ages remain on the side, framed by runes inscribed in glowing glass bricks and incorporating tiles and mosaics. Similar to Colchester, the mural incorporates waves of invasion and migration, from the Romans to Vikings, and tells episodes from the city’s history as well as referencing local architecture and landmarks such as bridges and Grey’s monument.

Like John Hutton’s narrative and abstract etched glass at Newcastle Civic Centre, it acknowledges inventions and innovations originating in Newcastle, as well as occupations and activities ranging from seafaring to mining. Like the other BHS commissions, the 1978 mural for BHS in Stockport incorporates motifs such as medallions and coins. Portraits of radicals such as politician Richard Cobden and writer Samuel Bamford sit alongside references to local industries such as hatting, depictions of the history of BHS and its buildings in the town, and playful pictures of goods such as crockery and items of clothing.

The future of the Stockport mural is uncertain, despite the increasing recognition of the Collins’ work across the UK, and of post-war murals more generally. Stockport’s former BHS store is currently empty and a potential redevelopment target, and the mural was denied listing in 2016, despite the efforts of the Twentieth Century Society. Its removal would be far more than the loss of a period piece: it’s a quirky, fun intervention in a town with very little public art, that invites visual and tactile exploration.

The beauty of the Collins’ work is not just in its technical accomplishment, but in its ability to create interest and excitement from ordinary life and objects. In an era when Pop Art and artists associated with the ‘Kitchen Sink School’ of painting looked to everyday life as source material and inspiration, the Collins went one step further, not just depicting what was in your shopping bag, but putting it in your sightlines when you went shopping.

Henry & Joyce Collins’ BHS Murals: Bringing Art to the High Street

BHS may have gone from our high streets, but its visual legacy remains across UK towns and cities in a series of striking murals by the prolific husband and wife partnership of Henry and Joyce Collins.

Much like the nature of department stores, the murals bring together a seemingly disparate assortment of goods and items. As well as incorporating the motif of a shopping basket of consumer goods in each mural, the pieces tell the story of the towns in which they’re found, using figures and imagery from local history and landscapes.

The Henry and Joyce Collins story started at Colchester School of Art in the 1930s, with the meeting of Henry Collins and Joyce Pallot. Post-war this blossomed into a productive living and working relationship, that included collaborations with artists and architects and commissions for the Festival of Britain and Expo ’70 in Japan. They set up home in the comfortable suburb of Lexden, and helped found the Colchester Art Society. Henry, a painter and designer, contributed scenes of East Anglia, and also designed posters for British Transport. Joyce, a teacher, sold work to her alma mater, the local girls’ grammar.

Both artists were born and raised in the Colchester area and did a number of public commissions across the historic town, including a large 1969 relief at the entrance to Sainsbury’s (they also did murals for Sainsbury’s in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, Gloucester, and Southampton). Their concrete medallions and mosaics decorate the underpasses leading from the town centre, past ancient St Botolph’s priory, to the suburbs, highlighting figures from Colchester’s history, from the town’s Romans origins to the physicist, physician and philosopher William Gilberd, who was born in the town.

Their 1976 work for Colchester BHS uses contrasting textures and raised, indented and carved shapes, created by pouring concrete into moulds, to great effect. The groceries of the shopping basket stand out boldly against a vibrant blue tiled background. The tradition of farming in the area is also prominent, taking place under a large East Anglian sun, as is the history of weaving and sewing: the mural depicts not just the finished product, but patterns and paraphernalia. The mural acknowledges the impact of Flemish migration on the town: the legacy can still be seen in Colchester’s quaint, hilly Dutch quarter.

Three years after ending up in a skip with the closure of the store in 2009, it was rescued, restored and resited thanks to the quick-thinking former director of contemporary art gallery First Site. The panels have been resinstalled in a passageway leading up to the gallery, and their newfound prominence has led to a campaign to restore the murals in the underpasses, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, and bring their work to the attention of a new audience with films and a leaflet about their symbolism and artistic significance.

In Harlow, Essex, in 1982, the Collins designed a mural for the BHS café, sitting at the top of the escalators. Less at risk from the weather and wear and tear than the other BHS murals, it’s made from wood rather than concrete and has a naïve, child-like feel, with the objects it depicts removed from perspective and appearing to float in space. It’s also more rural in its subject matter, depicting scythes, wheatsheafs, windmills, country churches and waterways such as the River Stort navigation, as well as wildlife such as birds and sheep. The mural shows the districts of the town and its coat of arms, highlighting a visit by the Queen. Despite Harlow’s significance as a post-war new town the modernist church spire of Our Lady of Fatima stands out in a mural where little of the town’s modern townscape and Essex’s post-war suburban expansion is acknowledged. Although the mural isn’t currently visible to the public since the store’s closure, it’s hoped that it could form the centrepiece of a new art gallery in a town that still takes pride in its varied public art commissions, initiated and pursued since the post-war period.

In Newcastle, the former BHS building is now home to Primark, but Henry and Joyce Collins’ 1974 panels depicting Newcastle through the Ages remain on the side, framed by runes inscribed in glowing glass bricks and incorporating tiles and mosaics. Similar to Colchester, the mural incorporates waves of invasion and migration, from the Romans to Vikings, and tells episodes from the city’s history as well as referencing local architecture and landmarks such as bridges and Grey’s monument.

Like John Hutton’s narrative and abstract etched glass at Newcastle Civic Centre, it acknowledges inventions and innovations originating in Newcastle, as well as occupations and activities ranging from seafaring to mining. Like the other BHS commissions, the 1978 mural for BHS in Stockport incorporates motifs such as medallions and coins. Portraits of radicals such as politician Richard Cobden and writer Samuel Bamford sit alongside references to local industries such as hatting, depictions of the history of BHS and its buildings in the town, and playful pictures of goods such as crockery and items of clothing.

The future of the Stockport mural is uncertain, despite the increasing recognition of the Collins’ work across the UK, and of post-war murals more generally. Stockport’s former BHS store is currently empty and a potential redevelopment target, and the mural was denied listing in 2016, despite the efforts of the Twentieth Century Society. Its removal would be far more than the loss of a period piece: it’s a quirky, fun intervention in a town with very little public art, that invites visual and tactile exploration.

The beauty of the Collins’ work is not just in its technical accomplishment, but in its ability to create interest and excitement from ordinary life and objects. In an era when Pop Art and artists associated with the ‘Kitchen Sink School’ of painting looked to everyday life as source material and inspiration, the Collins went one step further, not just depicting what was in your shopping bag, but putting it in your sightlines when you went shopping.