One of the leading abstract painters in Canada and a founding member of the Painters Eleven, Alexandra Luke was married to Ewart McLaughlin, and the couple gave financial support to the founding in 1967 of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. Named for Ewart's grandfather, an amateur artist, the facility was for the exhibition of local artists and for the establishment of a public art gallery in Oshawa. The Gallery had specific dedication to the Painters Eleven, who exhibited abstract art.

Alexandra Luke had two identities. Her artist name was Alexandra Luke, but personally she used Margaret Alexander Luke McLaughlin. She was highly prominent in her community, and many of her upper-class friends had no idea she was an artist.

Two of her artist colleagues, Jack Bush and Harold Town, told people that she was one of the most successful painters in Canada.

In a review of a biography of the artist titled Locating Alexandra by Margaret Rodgers, Frances Bergles wrote that the book "traces the complexities of her life: her struggle to establish a place in the art world; her unhappy marriage to a wealthy, un-supportive man; the demands placed on her as a mother and society matron; her involvement with the spiritualism of Gurdjieff; and the artistic discrimination she suffered because of her gender. Her story is an archetypal example of the tensions and trials of a woman striving for success in a traditionally male domain."


Source:
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
Frances Daw Bergles, http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol2/no36/alexandra.html