TRUE CRIME BIOGRAPHY AUSTRALIAN ART & DESIGN
Florence Broadhurst, the one-time chanteuse of Shanghai, Bond Street salon owner, world-renowned wallpaper designer and Sydney socialite lived a life steeped in subterfuge and deception. Here for the first time we get a glimpse at the fascinating woman behind the hand-printed brocades.
The mystery surrounding Florence’s death is in keeping with the elegant artifice of her life. Born in rural Australia, Florence soon decided Queensland was too small a stage. She travelled the world, changing her name and business as she went–a performing arts academy in Shanghai, a fashion salon in London and a husband or two until finally, in 1949, she returned to Australia. This time Broadhurst claimed to be an English woman escaping post-war London for the sunshine of the ‘promised land’.
1959 saw her drawing on images she had gathered from her travels to create a flourishing business, Australian (Hand Printed) Wallpapers. By the time of her death Florence Broadhurst was a successful socialite–and a wealthy woman. But who was she, this generous, ferociously autocratic and evasive woman? In A Life by Design we get a glimpse of the woman behind the hand-printed brocades and mysterious life.