"The Three Trees [Trees in Auckland [BC089]] is one of several studies of the subject, painted from a window of her Mt Eden flat in 1975/6. It shows where the disciplined search for formal solutions to problems in painting has led Flora Scales by the age of 88.
Her work has become more painterly and free. Her concern with the process of realising the image rather than with a polished final product, can be seen in the overpainted, rubbed and scratched areas, revealing evidence of her hand energetically at work. These structure-seeking gestural effects, the high degree of integration in colour and composition, and the stringent reduction of form, combine to produce a kinetic effect of planes shimmering and vibrating on the canvas."
BC089
Trees in Auckland
Landscape showing three Norfolk Island Pine trees. Irregular band of green lower margin. Higher band of very thinly applied blue and brown paint. Cone shapes of trees, dark green blurred, shadowy effect.
Date
1978
Object type
painting
Medium and materials
oil on canvas
Dimensions
270x207mm
Place Made
Auckland, New Zealand
Inscriptions
LR blue brush point Scales
Details
Condition Report
Pinholes evident upper left and right corners. Original loose canvas applied to a polyester sailcloth stretched to a wooden panel to accommodate the irregular edges for framing by John Harper, Art Conservation, Golden Bay, New Zealand, 1984.
Current Collection
Private Collection
Current Location
Auckland, New Zealand
General notes
Title and date taken from handwritten note by the artist that accompanied the painting when gifted to previous owner [see Related images 1]. The handwritten note on brown paper reads, “To Mr. and Mrs [Theo and Marjorie] de Lange, January 6th 1984 / With love from Flora Scales. / "Trees in Auckland / 1978.””
John Harper, Art Conservation, Golden Bay, New Zealand, restored the work in 1984. Correspondence Harper to B. de Lange, 16.09.2024, “I have found 12/84 Trees near Auckland which is very similar the same size but is different to Three Trees. I have attached a copy of the photo [see Related images 2. Note: the image is inversed]. I did find an encapsulated message on brown paper from Flora Scales in the file which should be reunited with the painting [see Related images 1]…I repaired a tear, removed a backing board, and lined the painting onto polyester sailcloth and then stretched that onto a wooden panel of marine plywood that was painted white front and back. It was treated in 1984.”
A hand-written conservation report regarding work undertaken on the painting in 1984 [see Related images 3] on letterhead titled “John Harper Conservation Studio” reads, “Aux Support: Framing Board – Portico Gallery, 114 Devonport Rd, Ph. 80-560, Tauranga. / Support: Linen canvas plane [sic] weave / Patch behind cut is cotton duck + wax adhesive may have been used. There is raw siena from the original on the patch indicating it is original. Canvas has been glued to the framing board with PVA glue. Painting appears to have been rubbed back. Signed bottom right. Purple/blue. / Treatment: Split and remove framing board by paring last layers away with scalpel. Scraped off most of the adhesive to reveal even layer of canvas. Removed patch and realigned torn strip of canvas. Patch is kept in this file. Butt joined corner piece using Selly’s 5 minute epoxy ARALDITE. Filled losses with dental plaster + Aquazol [illegible] 04/ml as binder. Retouched with raw pigments and Paraloid B-72. / Lined onto polyester cloth. / 3 brush coats of following adhesive applied to polyester + allowed to dry. / Elvax 150 45g / To??? 153g / Ke??? N 32g / White Spirit 197g / Paraffin 50 11g / Elvax 40-P 15g / Painting placed face down on double layer of felt then lining fabric applied. Adhesive melted with iron @ 65°c and held under pressure. / When cooled painting was stretched onto prepared block of ¾” marine ply which was coated with Liquitex acrylic gesso back and front. Lining fabric attached to block with stainless steel staples / Message from artist in pencil on brown paper was encapsulated in sealed myler [sic] envelope + returned with work.”
The subject is the same as View from Dominion Road [BC087] and Three Trees Brentwood Avenue [BC088]. This is a smaller canvas and, unlike the other two paintings, is in a portrait format.
Scales lived in this Mt Eden address 1975-1978 after she arrived in Auckland from Dunedin. During this time her major solo exhibition, Helen F.V. Scales, was held at the Auckland City Art Gallery. Scales returned to France in late 1976 for a few months before returning again to the Brentwood Avenue address in May 1977. She resided there until 26 October 1978 when she moved to the Rotorua Masonic Village until just before her death in January 1985.
Flora Scales’s life as an artist in New Zealand in the late 1970s was frequently disrupted by bouts of ill health. Noting her frustration, a visitor to her flat in Mt Eden looked out of the window and said, “paint that”, resulting in the series of three known paintings based on the trees beyond the Dominion Road flyover, Mt Eden, Auckland [View from Dominion Road [BC087], Three Trees Brentwood Avenue [BC088], Trees in Auckland [BC089]]. Scales described the view in conversation with M. de Lange, 1983 as “…a stone wall with a road on top.”
Used as illustration
‘Flora Scales: The Woman and Her Work’ by Barbi de Lange, Art New Zealand, issue 37, 1985, pg 50 (colour)
References
‘Flora Scales: The Woman and Her Work’ by Barbi de Lange, Art New Zealand, issue 37, 1985, pg 51
‘A Personal Reminiscence’ by Gretchen Albrecht, Art New Zealand, issue 37, 1985, pg 52
“Here, as with all Helen’s past rented rooms, boarding houses and flats, the immediate environment provided her with subject-matter. In Mt Eden, the view out the back door off the kitchen towards the green lawn and lemon tree [Untitled [Lemon Tree] [BC086]], was available to paint in summer. And, when it got too cold to keep the door propped open and winter set in, the view from the dining room window, framed by white nylon curtains, of three macrocarpas Trees in Auckland [BC089]] and the Dominion Road flyover, was tackled. The neighbour’s Siamese cat [Untitled [Cat no. 1] [BC082], Untitled [Cat no. 2] [BC083]] luxuriating in front of the small electric heater bar produced some fine paintings, and, always, there was a still life or flowers being worked on. These paintings were all small in size, done on commercially primed pieces of canvas and painstakingly fastened with drawing pins hammered in around the edges of the wooden frames, which she re-used constantly, removing the finished painting and tacking on a fresh piece of canvas.”
Acknowledgments
Photos by Sam Hartnett
Related images
