painter and theatrical designer, was born in Ballarat and studied art with Archibald and Amalie Colquhoun in Melbourne. With her sister Kathleen, Florence exhibited watercolours of fairy-tale subjects at Melbourne in the mid-1930s. The sisters’ first exhibition was held at Margaret MacLean’s Gallery in Kodak House in 1935, and they exhibited with MacLean again in 1937 and 1939 at her Riddell Galleries.
By then they were also designing for the theatre. In 1936 they designed a production of The Lower Depths for the Ribush Theatre Company. This was followed in 1937-38 by designs for Chekov and Gorky plays and for a starkly modern Murder in the Cathedral . La Lutte Eternelle represented their debut as ballet designers in 1940, and in the same year they submitted a scenario and designs for an Australian ballet, Flagstaff Hill , in a competition run by Colonel de Basil. In 1942 the sisters went to the USA, where Florence underwent some years of treatment for the paraplegia which had resulted from a car accident in 1928.
In 1945 Florence began to exhibit her paintings—many inspired by theatrical fantasies—at the George Binet Gallery in New York. She continued to design for the theatre and joined the United Scenic Artists of America. Over the next three decades she was to exhibit regularly in Australia, London and New York. With her sister she travelled widely. In 1952 they went to live in London, remaining there until the 1970s.
- Writers:
- Sayers, Andrew
- Date written:
- 1995
- Last updated:
- 2011
