Locating AlexandraThis in-depth look at the professional and private life of Alexandra Luke (a.k.a. Margaret McLaughlin) explores the tensions between Luke's multiple, discontinuous selves. As a woman of privilege living in Ontario in the 1940s and '50s, Margaret McLaughlin successfully performed the roles expected of someone in her position: she was a loving mother, a dutiful wife, and a popular hostess of dinner parties and afternoon teas. But as Alexandra Luke, she broke into and inhabited the male-dominated world of art, establishing Painters Eleven (the first abstract painting group in English Canada) and competed successfully both inside and beyond the Canadian art scene. In this first detailed biography of Luke, Margaret Rodgers unravels the ideological, socio-historical, and intertextual threads of this Canadian painter's life. She traces the link between Luke's art and mysticism, and explores the artist's fascination with the Gurdjieff movement. |
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abstract art abstract expressionism abstract expressionists abstract painting Alexandra Luke American Art Gallery art world Artist's File artistic expression automatic painting Banff Blue Dynasty Borduas Bucke's Canada Canadian art Canadian artists centre Clement Greenberg colour concept create creative critic cultural date unknown described Dick dynamic exhibition experience exploration female feminist friends gender Greenberg Gurdjieff group Gurdjieff movement Hans Hofmann Heilbrun Hofmann iconography ideas included interest interview Isabel McLaughlin Jack Bush Joan Murray Jock Macdonald Katherine Mansfield landscape Lawren Harris Luke's notes Luke's painting Madeleine Rose Margaret Alexandra Margaret McLaughlin marriage Mary members of Painters modern art modernist Moore mother Muskoka mysticism Ontario Oshawa Ouspensky Painters Eleven Painters Eleven members picture plane position reference relationship Robert McLaughlin Gallery role Search social society space spiritual studied surrealist teachings theories theosophy tion Tom Hodgson Toronto Vastokas watercolours William Ronald women artists York Yvonne McKague Housser