Untitled

Title and date supplied by artist at time of donation, 1979.

Alternative dates 1931, 1933 or possibly 1932 is when Scales spent time in St Tropez.

The 1933 dating of Untitled [Green Tree and Basilica, St Tropez] [BC135] supplies evidence that Flora Scales returned to paint in St Tropez between mid-June and late-September that year, between the time she finished at the Hofmann School on 10 June, and when she left London to sail to New Zealand on 29 September. She could have brought the painting with her on this journey. During this time, E.D. Kinzinger taught Summer School in Murnau, Bavaria, Germany.

It is presumed that it was in June 1933, when Scales concluded her studies at the Hofmann School, that Kinzinger gave Scales an untitled pencil drawing dated 1932 [see Related artworks]. Scales in conversation with B. de Lange, 1983, “when he said goodbye forever.”

To date it is not clear whether or when Scales was in St Tropez in 1932. Scales was known to be in New Zealand by June that year. Shipping notes report her leaving England late in April. The journey from France (Marseille or Paris) to New Zealand typically lasted five to seven weeks.

Various sources record that Scales had returned to New Zealand for “several months,” making it unlikely that she would have been back in St Tropez by September, before starting at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, by 14 October. It is known that Hans Hofmann's summer school in St Tropez took place over the months of July to September, and that, in 1932, the School was under the directorship of E.D. Kinzinger. But it is unlikely that Scales spent time with him that year.

Scales, in conversation with Janet Paul, Rotorua, New Zealand, 1979, noted, “I would spend 3 months in Paris and 3 months in Saint-Tropez until 1932,” suggesting that, had she been in St Tropez in 1932, it would most likely have been the months leading up to her departure for New Zealand.

This drawing of the Basilica and town of St Tropez is from a different location and viewpoint than that of Basilica and Lighthouse, St Tropez, Southern France [BC021] and others of this subject.

Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand documentation notes, “Scales’s only cubist drawing not destroyed by the occupying army in France, 1940s.” "A hilly landscape with houses and a distinctive domed church in the middle distance."

This drawing, when viewed with similarly themed drawings by E.D. Kinzinger [see Related artworks], suggest that there were "stock" views of St Tropez used for teaching purposes at the Hans Hofmann summer school. This view, looking across the town and up to the basilica, contains some of the hallmarks of a modernist painting and challenges the artist to create plasticity of space independent of linear perspective - the revolutionary idea so fervently imparted by both Hofmann and Kinzinger to their students.

A black and white photograph of this work is included in an artist’s file dedicated to Flora Scales at the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, reference Scales, Helen Flora Victoria, 1887-1985, Artist file prints [see Related images 2-3]. The file contains black and white photographs on card of 26 of the artworks in the Alexander Turnbull collection and one not held in the collection [Untitled [Sand Dunes] [BC011]].

Each card measures 167 x 216mm and the image size varies. Each card has handwritten reference notes along the top detailing artist name, title, year, size, and reference number. Further, on the back of each card are handwritten annotations with information including media, reference numbers and location within the physical collection.

The cards in this file are undated. Correspondence B. de Lange and Kimberley Stephenson, Research Librarian Pictorial, Alexander Turnbull Library, September 2025, notes, “Neither the associated copy negatives nor the file prints are dated but based on notes I found in the negative register one group (intermittent between 1/2-092380-F and 1/2-092705-F) was in existence by May 1979, while a second group (intermittent between 1/2-162480-F to 1/2-162510-F) had been created by December 1986. Given most of the paintings entered the collection in 1979, this does suggest that the first group shows the works soon after they were accessioned. The second group appears to have been taken during reframing or conservation treatment as many are shown without their stretchers.”