Kurt Heide, Oscar Woollens, Nanna Ditzel, Interspace
Kurt Heide was a German émigré who set up Oscar Woollens, the leading modern design store in North London in the 1960s.
After the war, he and his business partner, Walter Collins, having both been trained as cabinetmakers, were involved in the furniture trade and built up a client base in the Hampstead area. In the early 1950s, they were involved with interior schemes at the Festival of Britain and in shops in central London...
Kurt Heide was a German émigré who set up Oscar Woollens, the leading modern design store in North London in the 1960s.
After the war, he and his business partner, Walter Collins, having both been trained as cabinetmakers, were involved in the furniture trade and built up a client base in the Hampstead area. In the early 1950s, they were involved with interior schemes at the Festival of Britain and in shops in central London. The Oscar Woollens name came about when they acquired their first shop from a wool merchant called Oscar who had registered the name for his company, but had no use for it. With their skills and entrepreneurship, thus began over a decade of changing British post-war furniture tastes.
Persuading people to buy their well-designed furniture and a very personal service led to the expansion of their business to a furniture hire arm that supplied sets to films, including ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ and ‘There’s a Girl in My Soup’, to high profile clients such as John le Carré.
In 1968, Kurt married Nanna Ditzel, the Danish furniture and jewellery designer. Although somewhat known as Nanna’s husband, he was never in her shadow, and they collaborated together in setting up ‘Interspace’, a furniture company that designed modern furniture for British and Danish companies.
The furniture and photograph lots for sale in this auction were in the collection of Kurt Heide’s family, whose daughter, and subsequently granddaughter, lived in his flat in North London after his death in 1985. Photographs of the interior of the flat appeared in the Ideal Home Magazine in 1962, with furnishings being installed by France and Sons. The large cabinet (lot 340) was a bespoke piece fitted for the flat, which was only removed this spring.
The photographic archive will, I’m sure, be of huge interest to interior designers and furniture historians of the future, looking back at over sixty years of inspiring interiors.
For more information contact John Black
johnblack@sworder.co.uk | 01279 817778
Recent News
Ken Bolan | Nature Follows Form
Few figures in the art and antiques world have shaped taste and defied convention quite like Ken Bolan. From the glamour of continental showrooms to the quiet beauty of rewilded West Country landscapes, Ken’s journey has been one of bold vision and creative instinct. This landmark sale, to be held on Wednesday 24 September, opens a window into that world – a personal collection amassed over five decades, filled with sculpture, furniture, and design with soul and story.
7 July 2025
John Ruskin | A Remarkable Archive Comes to Auction at Sworders
A major highlight of our forthcoming 'DREAMS | A Unique Private Collection' sale on 9 July is a remarkable archive of letters and manuscripts by John Ruskin (1819–1900), the celebrated Victorian polymath. This unparalleled group – numbering in the hundreds – is believed to be the largest collection of Ruskin correspondence in private hands and spans a vast range of topics from art and architecture to politics, religion, and personal reflection.
2 July 2025
Valuation Day Discovery
'The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz' - also known as 'The Bagh-i-Muattar' - quickly caught the attention of our book specialists, when a copy bound in full vellum was brought in by a local client to our weekly valuation day.
2 July 2025