BC107
Untitled
[Shipboard sketchbook]
Top spiral-bound red covered sketchbook branded Grumbacher, Artcraft All-Purpose Sketch Book, 24 spirals, 17 leaves, containing drawings of:
Cover: labelled “Grumbacher Artists' Papers 7192-2 Artcraft All-Purpose Sketch Book 6”x 9” Kid Finish 30 sheets Made in U.S.A. M. Grumbacherm Inc. New York, N.Y. 10001”
Page 1: figure, pencil, numbered LR 1, pencil
Page 1 overleaf: unknown mark
Page 2: figure, pencil
Page 2 overleaf: note “2 tents 40, shoes 30”, black crayon, numbered UR 3, pencil
Page 3: landscape, pencil, numbered LR 4, pencil
Page 3 overleaf: cat in a room, crat
Page 4: landscape, three trees, Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, crayon, numbered LR 5, pencil
Page 4 overleaf: figure reading, crayon, numbered UR 6, pencil
Page 5: landscape, crayon, numbered LR 7, pencil
Page 5 overleaf: landscape, Suez Canal, Egypt, crayon
Page 6: landscape, crayon, numbered LR 9, pencil
Page 6 overleaf: smudges, numbered UR 10, pencil
Page 7: landscape with vehicles, crayon, numbered LR 11, pencil
Page 7 overleaf: possibly interior of a room, crayon
Page 8: head of a woman, crayon, numbered LR 13, pencil
Page 8 overleaf: landscape, Suez Canal, Egypt, crayon
Page 9: landscape, crayon, numbered LR 15, pencil
Page 9 overleaf: smudges
Page 10: landscape, crayon, numbered LL 17, pencil
Page 10 overleaf: smudges, numbered UR 18, pencil
Page 11: landscape, three trees, Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, crayon, numbered LR 19, pencil
Page 11 overleaf: smudges
Page 12: landscape, three trees, Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, crayon, numbered LR 13 and LL 21, pencil
Page 12 overleaf: landscape, three trees, Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden, Auckland, New Zealand, crayon, numbered LL 22, pencil
Page 13: head of a woman, crayon, numbered LR 23, pencil
Page 13 overleaf: cat, crayon
Page 14: figure, crayon, numbered LR 25, pencil
Page 14 overleaf: two seated figures in profile, crayon, numbered LL 26, pencil
Page 15: cat, crayon, numbered LR 27, pencil
Page 15 overleaf: landscape, crayon
Page 16: cat, crayon, numbered LR 29, pencil
Page 16 overleaf: landscape, Port Said, Egypt, crayon, numbered UR 30, pencil
Page 17: ship, landscape, Piraeus, Greece, crayon
Page 17 overleaf: blank, signed “Port Piraeus Greece Flora Scales 1977”, pencil, numbered UL 31 2, pencil
Inside back cover Upper margin For Gretchen 45i (illegible), crayon
Back cover: blank
Front cover Upper margin ink H Scales, Flat 1, 38 Brentwood Avenue, Mt Eden
Front cover UR (not in artist's hand) pencil 79-328
Front cover LR (not in artist's hand) pencil 79-328 QE 355
Page 1 UR crayon H. F. V Scales. Berth 172 RUSTAVALIE [sic]. 22.4.77
Page 5 overleaf LL ink Suez Canal 1977
Page 5 overleaf LR ink Arabia
Page 8 overleaf LL ink H.F.S April 1977
Page 8 overleaf LR ink SUEZ Helen Scales Suez Canal
Page 10 LR crayon curtain 20-4-7
Page 14 overleaf UL margin crayon JACOB
Page 15 UR crayon 14.4.
Page 15 LR crayon ROT
Page 15 overleaf LR ink 7th April 1977
Page 16 LR inversed pencil Port Siad [sic] Egypt 1977 (1978) (erased)
Page 16 overleaf LR ink 6th April 1977 PORT SAID
Page 17 LL ink PIRAEUS
Page 17 LR ink Piraeus April 1977
Page 17 overleaf LR pencil Port Piraeus Greece Flora Scales 1977
Inside back cover Upper margin crayon For Gretchen 45i (illegible)
Donated to the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand by H. F. V. Scales, 1979
17 pages remain from original 30 pages. Page 15 cropped short to suit drawing page 15 overleaf.
Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
Includes drawings done while Flora Scale's 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], Untitled [Three Trees] [BC089].
Pages roughly numbered 1-31 in pencil, presumably by Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand staff, after it's 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.