Laura Adeline Muntz was born at
Royal Leamington Spa,
Warwickshire,
England in 1860, but her family emigrated to Canada when she was a child. She grew up on a farm in the
Muskoka District of
Ontario. Starting in 1882, she began to take classes at the
Ontario School of Art in Toronto where she studied with
Lucius Richard O'Brien, and later with
George Agnew Reid. as well as at various French exhibitions such as the
Société des Artistes Français, resulted in her paintings being reproduced in periodicals such as ''
L'Illustration'', and reviewed in Toronto's
Saturday Night, and in England's
the Studio, and in many other magazines and newspapers which gave her increased prestige and successful sales. But, in 1895, while she was still in Paris, the unmarried Muntz was called home from a triumphant year abroad to look after an ailing relative. Upon her return, in 1896, the Académie Colarossi, in recognition of her diligence and talent, made her "massière" or studio head. Muntz decided to return to Canada in 1898 and set up a studio in
Toronto to teach and paint. and was awarded a bronze medal at the 1904
Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. in 1896, only the eighth woman to receive this honour. Muntz was a member of the
Ontario Society of Artists starting in 1891; she was the first woman appointed to its Executive Council in 1899, serving until 1903. In 1909, she was invited to exhibit with the
Canadian Art Club: she was the only woman so honoured by this group. Following the death of her sister in 1915, she returned to Toronto and married her brother-in-law Charles W.B. Lyall to care for the children of her sister's marriage (there were 11 of them but only a few remained at home). She then set a studio up in the attic of their home, and started signing her works with her married name. In 1921, she travelled with her husband to Devon, England and there painted what was new scenery for her. Critics praise her handling of light and restrained though rich colour, proof that she could have been a major landscape painter if she chose. In 1930, Muntz was ill and dying of Exophthalmic Goitre brought on partly by overwork and worry about the family responsibilities she had assumed fifteen years earlier. Despite these trying personal circumstances, she continued to paint until her death in 1930. ==Collections==