Frederick Henrion was born to Jewish parents in Nuremberg, Germany in 1914 and trained at the Paul Colin School of Graphic Design in Paris, before the Nazi menace drove him to Palestine. In 1936 he moved to London, where he became a pioneer of corporate identity design in Britain, creating some of the most memorable logos in post-war Britain, including those for the Festival Hall, Girobank and the London Electricity Board.
Graphic designer Frederick Henri Kay Henrion was born Heinrich Fritz Kohn in Nuremberg, Germany in 1914 to Jewish parents. His father, Max Kohn, was a solicitor, his mother, Paula (née Rosenau) was from France. From 1933–35 Henrion worked as a textile and graphic designer in small studios. He later trained at the Paul Colin School of Graphic Design in Paris, before the Nazi menace drove him to Tel Aviv, Palestine.
After the Arab revolt began, he immigrated to London in 1936, setting up his own studio. In 1937 he worked on the Publicity Pavilion for the Paris International Fair and the Modern Architectural Research Society (MARS) exhibition in London, as well as the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition and the 1939 New York World’s Fair. From 1936–39 he divided his time between Paris and London, designing posters, packaging and adverts. Henrion was one of a number of designers pioneering the use of Surrealist juxtapositions in advertising and visual communication, using elements of photomontage and collage. During the Second World War, he was interned as an 'enemy alien' at Onchan Camp on the Isle of Man, where he contributed drawings to the camp newspaper, Onchan Pioneer, and its supplement, Onchan Camp Youth. A full page montage by internees, heralding New Year 1941, included Henrion's distinctive design of a single hand clasping a dove, which he later reprised for the AlA (Artists International Association). Henrion also designed greeting cards in camp and participated in Jack Bilbo's second ‘Christmas Cards and Arts Exhibition’, held from 26 October to 6 November 1940. Klaus Hinrichsen, historian of internment art and former internee in Hutchinson camp, described the Onchan Pioneer's illustrations: 'Except for the sculptor Hermann Nonnenmacher and the designer Henrion the graphic work was unimpressive'. (Hinrichsen, Martin Milllgate, unpublished typescript, private archive). Henrion was released following an appeal by the Artists’ Refugee Council, who argued that his skills would be invaluable to the war effort. He was subsequently employed as a poster designer at the Ministry of Information and the US Office of War Information. In an interview for Designer (May 1979), he recalled: 'Although I was born in Germany I no longer had a German passport, just French identity papers. I was classed as an enemy alien, and [when France fell] […] I was interned for six months on the Isle of Man. So when I came out at the end of 1940, I moved from the IOM (Isle of Man) to the MOI (Ministry of Information) which was rather funny […] From being mistrusted to being trusted with secret information all within a week.' Henrion also produced murals for Thorncliffe Works College, where Churchill tanks were built and exhibited with the Free German League of Culture (FGLC), a politically-inspired organisation offering cultural support to anti-Nazi German refugees in Britain throughout the war. Henrion also participated in AIA activities, lecturing on 'Propaganda in Art' (1943) and, in 1949, as the organisation became less radical, on 'The Planning and Display of Exhibitions'.
In 1946 Henrion acquired British citizenship and in 1947 he married British sculptor Daphne Hardy. In 1951 he founded Henrion Design Associates, pioneering corporate identity design in Britain and was instrumental in many successful campaigns. He created many familiar logos, including those for London's Festival Hall, Girobank and the London Electricity Board. He was also consultant to the British Transport Commission, British Olivetti, British European Airways, Blue Circle Cement, KLM, the Post Office, and Tate & Lyle, among many others. His work ranged from the design of symbols and corporate identities to jewellery, furniture, exhibitions and sewing machines. In 1951 he designed two pavilions for the Festival of Britain, The Land of Britain and The Country, earning him an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), upgraded to an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1985. He taught at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts (1948–50), Royal College of Art (1951–65) and London College of Printing (1976–79). He was president of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (1963–66), of the Society of Designers and Artists (1960–62) and of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA) (1968–70), which he helped to transform into a significant international body. Henrion died at his home in London in 1990. His work is represented in public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London Transport Museum and Imperial War Museum. In 2010 his work was included in Ben Uri's touring exhibition Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c. 1933–45. In 2018, examples of his work, including the propaganda poster Four Hands (1944), commissioned by the US Office of War Information, showing four hands ripping a swastika apart, featured in the exhibition Designs on Britain, at the Jewish Museum London. Henrion's archive is held at the University of Brighton.