Untitled

The title Moored Yachts was supplied by a Dunbar Sloane auction catalogue dated 1987.

Correspondence with Sir Ivor Richardson to B. de Lange, 09.07.1987: “This painting had previously been sold at Webb’s but I missed it. I then bought it at Dunbar Sloane.” It seems likely that the purchaser from Webb’s auction was the historian, J. C. Beaglehole, and that Sir Ivor Richardson bought it from Dunbar Sloane one year later in 1987.

The outline of geometric shapes made by the mast, bowsprit and boom, herald the strong V-shape seen in the agaves of Scales's work of the 1930s [Untitled [Mediterranean Scene] 1 [BC016]], the derricks of the 1950s [Untitled [Mousehole Cornwall 2] [BC029]] and the forked tree trunks of the late 1960s and early 1970s [Bry-sur-Marne, Orchard] [BC069]], in which this shape becomes a tool for her construction of dynamic pictorial space.

The V-shapes of the agaves, trees and derricks, significant elements in her work during and after the 1930s, begin to form the vocabulary of her Modernist work following Hans Hofmann's instruction to do away with single-point perspective.

As well as the equilibrium established by the balanced vanes of the V-shape, there is also an immanent sense of movement. Hofmann said, "We have to experience the object as vital in her existence in space" (Dickey, Tina, Color Creates Light: Studies with Hans Hofmann, Trillistar Books, Canada, 2011, pg 27). Hofmann explained that volumes revolve on their axes to create a sense of movement and counter-movement, which animates and gives depth to the flat surface of the picture plane.

Scales's use and manipulation of the V-shape is one of several examples in her work which demonstrate the way she assimilated, and made her own, the teachings of Hans Hofmann. This example in particular shows her personal interpretation, without imitation, of his theories about the creation of plastic space, which were crucial to the development of her modernism.