Untitled

Includes drawings done while Flora Scales was a passenger on-board the SS Shota Rostaveli on her trip back to New Zealand from France in 1977.

Drawings roughly alternate front and verso between those drawn on the Rostaveli and those done once Scales had returned to her home in Auckland, as though the sketchbook were flipped and used again from back to front.

The inscribed “Flat 1, 38 Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden” [front cover] refers to her home in Auckland, New Zealand. 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.

Pages 4, 11, 12, 12 overleaf relate to works Scales painted from Brentwood Avenue, View from Dominion Road [BC087], Three Trees Brentwood Avenue [BC088], Trees in Auckland [BC089].

Pages roughly numbered 1-31 in pencil, presumably by Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand staff, after its donation in 1979.

When the SS Shota Rustaveli docked in Piraeus, Greece, Scales's niece, Diana Zaharopoulos (nee Westacott, later Mills), collected her and took her home to her flat in Athens for the night. Correspondence Diana Mills to B. de Lange, 02.11.1983, “Although Aunt Lass [Flora] seemed a little older, she still seemed the old Aunt Lass, upright and full of courage.”

This was to be the last journey Scales made between Europe and New Zealand.

Black and white photographs of three pages from this sketchbook are 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 1-6]. 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. Pages 10, 11 and 12 from this sketchbook are each included in the file, noting similar information. Page 10 and 11 are titled "[Rough sketch]". The overleaf of the card for page 10 notes, "View into Myers Park from window of Y.W.C.A. where artist was staying on her return to N.Z. Tall palms in foreground."

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.”