Untitled [Bry-sur-Marne, Street Scene with Flags]

Catalogue

Street scene. Two French flags upper centre. Suggestion of figures in street. Shapes, probably cars, at right of road. Tall green tree at right. Slanted rectangle at left with blue block shape above.

Date

1961

Object type

painting

Medium and materials

oil on canvas

Dimensions

268x345mm

Place Made

Bry-sur-Marne, France

Inscriptions

LL brown brush point F Scales 1961

Current Collection

Private Collection

Current Location

Unknown - possibly Australia

Keywords

landscape format oil painting Bry-sur-Marne France streetscene French flags figures Bastille Day cars trees middle years

Purchased by original owner from the artist in her Brentwood Avenue flat, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, 1976, just prior to the artist returning to Europe.

Correspondence Boris Kalachnikoff to B. de Lange, 24.06.1992, suggests this painting depicts the street decorations for 14 July, Bastille Day, near the Mairie (Town Hall) in Bry-sur-Marne, France.

Bry-sur-Marne is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France, 12.6 km from the city centre. In 1953, when Boris and Christiane Kalachnikoff built their house in Bry-sur-Marne, the population was approximately 6,660 and the town still retained its rural character.

Images taken from photographic transparency slides. These are the only images recorded of this work, its location is unknown.

References

‘Becoming Modern: The paintings of Flora Scales’ by Jennifer Higgie, written for florascales.com, 2022

"In 1959-60, in her mid-70s, Scales once again became a student, enrolling in Heatherley’s School of Art in London. Some of her paintings of the time are as intense as fever dreams. The jewel-like Untitled [Bry-sur-Marne, Street Scene with Flags] [BC039] (1961), for example, is a rich study in turquoise and burnt umber. Choppy paint marks are smoothed into small, blurred figures and limp flags dwarfed by a suggestion of the street; the sky is indistinguishable from the foliage of a sea-green tree."