Madame Lash is one of Australia's 'Living Treasures'. Certainly she is a national icon, responsible for challenging and inspiring many Australian institutions and individuals. The State Library of NSW included Madame Lash in their recent Sydney Eccentrics Exhibition - "Everyone has met an eccentric. You never forget them. They form part of our collective memory and consciousness. Deep down there is something of them all in all of us"
Her five-level sandstone mansion on Sydney's Northern Beaches is home to several hundred of her portraits.
It is also home to young artists needing a place to stay, a place to be motivated, and a place to create. The sculptors, dancers, painters and performers who are nurtured by the Madame live in the dungeon level of the house, in cells, or dormitory style accommodation. They only stay if they continue to be creative and are welcomed because according to Madame Lash "the better you look, the better I look ..."
