Alexandra Luke
| Alexandra Luke | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Margaret Alexandra Luke 14 May 1901 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | 1 June 1967 Oshawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Abstract expressionism |
Alexandra Luke (14 May 1901 - 1 June 1967), born Margaret Alexandra Luke in Montreal, Quebec, was a Canadian abstract artist who belonged to the Painters Eleven.
Alexandra Luke was born into an upper-class family in Westmount, Montreal. She was born a twin to parents Jesse Herbert Ritson Luke and Emma Russell Long. After she had finished high school in 1914, the family settled in Oshawa, Ontario. Soon after, both Alexandra and her twin sister Isobel began nurse's training at Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C.
After her graduation, Luke returned to Oshawa and married Marcus Everett Smith. Their marriage was short lived, as Smith died suddenly four months into their marriage, but Luke gave birth to his son, Richard, in 1926. Soon after, she was courted by Clarence Ewart McLaughlin, son of George W. McLaughlin and grandson of Robert McLaughlin, the founder of the McLaughlin Carriage Company. The couple married in 1928 and had their first child, Mary, in 1930.
It wasn't until her late 20s that Luke began to create art. Inspired by two local artists, Dorothy Van Luven and Dorothy Henderson, she began to paint and organize arts classes around the city. She used her wealth to help build the arts community in Oshawa and became a member of several boards and societies, including the Oshawa Women's Lyceum Club and Oshawa Historical Society.
Luke painted landscapes in a large, third floor studio in her husband's home and soon discovered abstract art after visiting modernist exhibitions in Toronto and Ottawa. Desperate to be seen as more than a hobbyist painter, she sought out a portfolio review by landscape artist Caven Atkins in 1944. Atkins gave her a blunt review and told her that her Group of Seven-inspired style was not viable. This pushed her to further explore abstraction and receive formal art training at the Banff School of Fine Arts (renamed Banff Centre) in 1945, then the Hans Hofmann School of Art in 1947. From Hofmann's teachings, she began to understand how to create energy in her paintings with colour, texture and the use of white space.
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