Kitty as a Picture Surface Design Blog: Illustration Pattern Fashion: THE Must-Read Book for Surface Pattern Designers: Florence Broadhurst - Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives, by Helen O'Neill

Thursday, January 17, 2013

THE Must-Read Book for Surface Pattern Designers: Florence Broadhurst - Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives, by Helen O'Neill

Florence Broadhurst was a fascinating woman. Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives is a fascinating and extraordinary book. This book utterly captivates as early as the preface. This book made me laugh and made me cry. It also gave me real shivers of horror as it described Florence Broadhurst's brutal murder in 1977 and the subsequent investigation. This is a book I will not forget.

Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives

There is much to be inspired by in the life of Florence Broadhurst. She was a bold, flamboyant woman who travelled extensively and reinvented herself repeatedly throughout her life. The collection of 530 designs that is her legacy was not a lifetime's work as you might think, but an extensive collection that began when Florence Broadhurst was sixty! At this age she founded a wallpaper design studio in Sydney, and until her death at the age of seventy-eight she was extremely prolific and successful as a pattern designer. Her sought-after designs made their way around the world to such places as London, New York, and Saudi Arabia. Florence Broadhurst's eclectic collection of hand-drawn designs came very close to being destroyed, but this precious archive is now being brought back to life by the efforts of David and Helen Lennie of Signature Prints. You can learn more about Florence Broadhurst and the role Signature Prints has played in her revival by downloading Helen Lennie's very interesting guest blog for 'The Design Files'. In New Zealand some of Florence Broadhurst's designs are available as hand-printed wallpaper at Paper Room.