LAURA MUNTZ LYALL
Canadian 1860-1930

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Laura Muntz was born in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, near the village of Radford Semele in 1860. At the age of nine, in 1869, her family left England for Canada. They first settled in Orillia Township, Ontario but quickly moved, settling on a farm in the Muskoka district near Bracebridge, Ontario in 1872. Her father had come from money and purchased the large farm on which to raise imported pure-bread cattle. He believed himself to be a gentleman farmer, who could ride, hunt and fish and the farm would look after itself. This turned out to be a daydream, but he managed his farm responsibly and expected his children to do their share of labour. This routine and work ethic served Laura well later in life.

Before the family left England, her mother had taken her to see an exhibition of paintings in the Crystal Palace in London. She was mesmerized, and from this moment her “one thought and ambition was to paint pictures.” She was originally encouraged to study art by the artist and art teacher William Charles Forster. He began to give her lessons during his visits to the Muskoka region in the early 1880s, but eventually suggested she move to Hamilton, Ontario to study at his art school there. She lived with Forster and his family on and off for the next two years. He recognized her talent and told her so. It was he, that told her that he was sure she could support herself by painting. Forster was her champion and close friend, as were his children, her entire life.

In the fall of 1882, Laura Muntz moved to Toronto to being studies at the Ontario School of Art under Lucius O’Brien, the first president of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. After training in Toronto and saving funds for some years she traveled to England to continue her studies and enrolled at the St. John’s Wood Art School in London. This highly praised, basic art training school, at the time had the reputation of sending more students to the Royal Academy then any other institution. She studied under Maurice Greiffenhagen, an academy artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. While studying at St. John’s Wood, she had a residency at the school of Thomas Faed the Scottish genre painter who was a very successful artist at the time. Muntz was influenced to continue to focus on sentimental genre paintings, and mothers and children became a common theme in her work.

Laura Muntz returned to Canada where she stayed with the Forster family and opened her first art studio to raise funds for further travel and study. She returned in the fall of 1890 to Toronto to study under G.A Reid, whose genre work was greatly admired. Muntz wished to study with Reid in order to improve her ability to paint the human figure. He also introduced her to the ideas, if not the style, of the Impressionist movement. Reid nominated Muntz for membership in the Ontario Society of Artists in 1891 where she was elected unanimously and exhibited nine works in their annual exhibition. Her works were well received and she won first prize for best painting, her success finding her buyers for her paintings. This combined with some funds from her grandmother allowed her to travel to Paris in 1891.

Studying at the Academie Colarossi, which accepted women students, her professors included Paul-Joseph Blanc, Gustave Courtois, Louis-Auguste Girardot and Pierre Fritel. Muntz was further influenced by Impressionism and learned to paint emphasizing mass and reducing the details. Her instructors encouraged students to visit not only the salon but other exhibitions and galleries, including those exhibiting impressionist works. She continued to paint her preferred subject of woman and children but now they had Impressionistic light and motion. She knew, however, that her Impressionist technique would be too modern for the salon and instead painted a more traditional technical painting for submission to the salon in 1894. The painting, “The Watcher”, was accepted and an immediate success. Her career was launched and she continued to exhibit at the Salon over the next four years. She landed employment at the Academie Colarossi, which provided her income and free tuition. She enjoyed success, and sent works back to Canada for exhibition at the Annual Salon of the Societe Internationale d’Aquarellistes. She was elected an Associate to the Royal Canadian Academy, as women could not be full members.

To save money while she studied in France, Muntz shared an apartment with the American artist Wilhelmina Hawley. The two artists traveled together throughout France and Holland, searching for subjects to paint. During the winter of 1894 while they were spending time in Moret-sur Loing, an artist colony near Barbizon, the famous artist James McNeill Whistler visited their studio. They struck up a friendship and as his studio in Paris was near their flat, he would visit often. His friendship may have been responsible for some of Muntz’s new technical freedom, eliminating detail in favor of light and colour.

Laura Muntz left Paris suddenly in 1898, just as she was receiving her most critical acclaim. She had fallen in love but discovered that he was already married. She left Paris to avoid the pain and have a fresh start. Joined by her friend Wilhelmina Hawley for six months, she opened an art studio in the Young Street Arcade in Toronto. They painted and taught classes, but Laura’s heart was not in it. She was eventually hired to teach life drawing at the Hamilton Art School, and then to teach art at St. Margaret’s college. She followed this by teaching at a number of private schools.

Taking up residence in Montreal, Muntz continued to paint and received a number of accolades for her work. She won a bronze medal at the Louisiana Purchase exhibition in 1901; a silver medal at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo in 1904; and her painting “A Daffodil” was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in 1910. She was also the first woman to be invited to exhibit with the Canadian Art Club in 1909. In 1915, at the age of 55, she married Charles Lyall and began signing her canvasses Laura Muntz Lyall, applying this signature even to canvasses completed much earlier so that each signature appeared on opposite corners. However, after her marriage her painting activities all but ceased, and she only resumed her work shortly before her death in 1930 at the age of 70.

Muntz’s work is strongly influenced by Impressionism in its evocation of light and its loose, fluid brushwork. Some of her paintings have been compared to those of Mary Cassatt in their tenderness of feeling and the artist’s skillful handling of the paint. Her work is represented in the following collections nationwide including: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Toronto Parliament Buildings, Victoria Parliament Buildings, Vancouver Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, and elsewhere. She is also well represented in private collections in New York, Chicago, and across Canada.