Alexandra Luke and Isabel McLaughlin: Painters and Patrons

Canadian artists Alexandra Luke and Isabel McLaughlin were instrumental to the history and development of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG). Their invaluable support helped shape the gallery, including substantial financial support for the building and donations of artworks. Pulling together works by Luke and McLaughlin from the RMG’s collection, this exhibition celebrates these two incredible women as not only influential benefactors, but also important artists in their own right, who contributed greatly to modernist painting and abstraction in Canada.

Alexandra Luke (i.e. Margaret McLaughlin) was an important artist linked to the beginnings of abstract painting in Canada and a founding member of Painters Eleven, Ontario’s first abstract painting group (1953-1960). Luke was instrumental in organizing the first Canadian all-abstract exhibition in 1952, which opened in Oshawa, Ontario and toured across the country. The following year, she exhibited work in the exhibition Abstracts at Home, which led to the first official meeting of Painters Eleven at Luke’s cottage at Thickson’s Point near Oshawa in 1953. Painters Eleven were deeply committed to abstraction and were influential in promoting abstract painting in Canada. While her husband Ewart McLaughlin provided the funds for the first RMG building, it was the gift of Alexandra Luke’s personal art collection that created a starting point for the gallery’s collection and ultimately the focus on Painters Eleven.

Isabel McLaughlin, daughter of the industrialist R.S. McLaughlin, was an important early modernist artist in Canada. She was invited to exhibit her work alongside members of Group of Seven and was the first female president of the Canadian Group of Painters. McLaughlin studied and became friends with many significant Canadian artists of the mid-century collecting their work over the years. Her extensive collection, which she donated to the RMG, included important works by Group of Seven, Canadian Group of Painters, the Beaver Hall Group and early examples of abstraction.

Luke and McLaughlin’s artist friends and colleagues recognized their artistic contributions beyond their art patronage. For example, Group of Seven’s A.Y. Jackson wrote in a letter to Isabel McLaughlin: “You don't receive nearly the recognition you should have, you do so much for other artists and never ask anything for yourself.” For the RMG, Luke and McLaughlin’s lasting impact as artists and patrons to both the gallery and Canadian art history is celebrated every time their artwork or something they donated is featured in exhibitions.