010 REPORTER


OBITUARY Cherrill Scheer


The doyenne of post- war contemporary furniture manufacturing has died aged 84 after a lifetime of service with contemporary design


WORDS BY THERESA DOWLING


Left and above A selection of marketing leaflets produced by Hille, commerating the company’s work over seven decades


CHERRILL SCHEER was born in to the Hille family furniture manufacturing company that became a global sensation in post-war design and she drove Hille’s marketing until the business was sold in the mid-1980s. As one of two daughters of Ray Hille, she was the group marketing director, and Cherry presided over the launch and immense market success of the Poly Chair. Designed by Robin Day, one of the most influential post-war British designers, the Poly Chair was launched in 1963. Since then, some 14 million chairs have been sold and variants of the Poly continue to be sold at a rate of 500,000 units a year. And it was Cherry who launched the product, identifying potential buyers, organising publicity and sending out hundreds of samples to specifiers and architects both in government and the private sector. It was an astounding success.


Robin Day’s product design success was quickly followed by the Fred Scott Supporto chair which wowed the early 1980s architecture and design market. This was consolidated by the Hille exhibition at the V&A museum in 1981 which triumphed their journey from a repro factory in the post-war East End, to the world’s leading contemporary furniture manufacturer. Their Watford of ices were designed by Erno


Goldfinger, and the company feted the most prestigious architects and designers, for which Cherry was at home greeting Edward Paolozzi, Enzo Apicella and Althea McNish, all of whom became firm friends. That’s not to mention friends such as Richard Rogers, Terence Conran, Norman Foster and other greats of the era. From 1991, Cherry founded and led a small but highly eff ective public relations and marketing consultancy, Cherrill Scheer and


Associates, specialising in contract furniture, architecture and interior design. A highly- regarded advisor with huge inside knowledge of the furniture industry, Cherry travelled all over the world to promote the work of her clients and remained at the helm of the company until shortly before her death. Cherry’s work for the cause of modern design has been publicly recognised in many ways, including fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Society of Designers, together with awards from the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers and many others. I worked as Cherry’s assistant at Hille


throughout the 1980s and came to know how influential she was in business and the design industry. Focused, ambitious and always professional, she was a mighty force to be reckoned with. Her diminutive stature belied


From right Cherrill Scheer, founder of Cherrill Scheer and Associates,


photographed here in 1960


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