Untitled

Sketchbook photographed by Janet Paul in c.1979. Part of sketchbook photographed by B. de Lange, Rotorua Masonic Village, New Zealand, 1983. Flora Scales was a resident there from 26 October 1978 until just before her death in January 1985. Location of original pages unknown. Description of sketchbook, Kid finish sketchbook branded Grumbacher, 5" x 7", noted by de Lange in 1983.

35mm colour transparency slides of four pages [pages 1, 5, 7, 8] donated to the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Reference no. ATL-Group-00723, by B. de Lange, December 1997.

Xerox copies of photographs of 14 pages are held at Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Reference no. MS-Papers-1893-1. It can be assumed that Janet Paul took these photographs during a visit to Flora Scales in 1979. This assumption can be made as by 1983 when de Lange photographed the sketchbook Scales had added inscriptions to pages 7 and 8 [see Related images 3 and 4]. Paul’s photographs do not include page 1 as photographed by de Lange suggesting it was added to the sketchbook, as well as the inscriptions, between 1979 and 1983. Location of original photographs or negatives by Paul unknown.

The first page of these photocopies [documenting page 2, see Related image 1] has a red Alexander Turnbull Library stamp and is inscribed in Paul’s hand at the lower margin [inverted], “Flora Scales Sketchbook ? recent”.

Scales possibly had this sketchbook with her in Bry-sur-Marne, France in 1977. Correspondence Boris Kalachnikoff to B. de Lange, 13.09.1990, writes, “At Bry [sur-Marne] she painted the village, still lifes, plum trees, drew our cat Pussy in her drawing book."