Florence Broadhurst (1899–1977), designer and businesswoman, grew up on a cattle station west of Bundaberg in Queensland and as a young woman toured Asia with musical theatre troupes. Having briefly run a finishing school in Shanghai, she went to London in the late 1920s, adopting the identity 'Madame Pellier' and establishing herself as a couturier in Bond Street. Returning to Australia in 1949, she took up landscape painting and during the 1950s exhibited her works in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra. In 1959, she established Australian (Hand Printed) Wallpapers Pty Ltd and, with a small staff, produced a range of high-quality wallpapers from a workshop situated at the back of her St Leonards car dealership. She soon built a reputation for wallpaper designs that were as bold and flamboyant as she was, and which were unique for their experimentation with printing techniques, finishes and textures. The company became known as Florence Broadhurst Wallpapers Pty Ltd on its relocation to premises in Paddington in 1969. The Broadhurst Design Collection had grown to some 800 patterns when Florence was murdered in the Paddington factory in October 1977. The case has never been solved.
Purchased 2007
© Estate of Joshua Smith
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
The name of Florence Broadhurst, one of Australia’s most significant wallpaper and textile designers, is now firmly cemented in the canon of Australian art and design.
It takes a village to raise a creative! Get an insight into the often-unseen work and supporters needed for the arts to thrive. The work of art documents the creative process, evoke states of creativity and inspiration, and shows us clues about the subject’s own work from the way artists portray them.
