CGP CSPWC OSA P11
1901 - 1967
Canadian
Rocks
ink and watercolour on paper
signed Margaret McLaughlin and dated 1948
10 x 15 in, 25.4 x 38.1 cm
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000 CAD
Sold for: $3,750
Preview at:
PROVENANCE
Peter Ohler Fine Art Ltd., Vancouver
Private Collection, Vancouver
EXHIBITED
Art Gallery of Toronto, Exhibition of Contemporary Canadian Arts, March 3 - April 16, 1950, Catalogue #204
Elsie Perrin Williams Memorial Art Museum, London, Ontario
A sometimes lesser known fact about one of Canada’s most important abstract artists, Alexandra Luke, is that her works produced 1948 and earlier are often signed Margaret McLaughlin (or initialed MMcL, as in this case). Alexandra Luke was her chosen artist’s name, Alexandra being her middle name and Luke being her maiden name. This particular period was a decisive time for abstract painting in Canada and a transformative moment in Luke’s own evolution as an artist, as evidenced by this work. A fascinating, heavily abstracted landscape, it shows the influence of famed artist and teacher Hans Hoffman, who Luke studied with the year this work was produced. It also shows a trajectory that mirrored of some of her soon-to-be Painters 11 peers, such as Jack Bush, Kazuo Nakamura, and Jock Macdonald, who were all at their own various mid-points between representation and abstraction. In just a few short years, Luke would organize the Canadian Abstract Exhibition, a foundational non-objective painting exhibition held at Adelaide House in Oshawa in 1952 and touring to Toronto’s Hart House the following year. By 1954, Painters 11 would hold their first gallery exhibition at Toronto’s Roberts Gallery, forever changing art history in Canada.
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