Masters Gallery, Calgary
Private Collection, Toronto
Literature
Joan Murray, “Laura Muntz Lyall: Impressions of Women and Childhood”, Montreal/Kingston, 2012, page 139
A.K. Prakash, “Independent Spirits: Early Canadian Women Artists”, Toronto, 2008, pages 46 and 48
Laura Muntz shines as a portraitist with the creative and technical prowess to unveil the subject's inner nature. There is a dreamlike quality to her work, exemplified by her focus on light and colour and methodical dismissal of unnecessary detail. “[Muntz] has the sense of the motions and instinctive graces of childhood. She translates them with an insight and a touch unspoiled by sentimental preciosity, relieved by the freshest of colouring, the freest, the most ethereal, and the most supple technique.” In “Portrait of a Young Girl”, the child wrings her hands gingerly, caught in the breath before asking an innocent question. Muntz' maternal scenes reflect the tenderness that is associated with the most precious moments of childhood.
Although childless herself, Muntz lived a life surrounded by children. She was a school teacher upon moving to Canada and, later, the caregiver of her deceased sister's eleven children. Muntz painted portraits of women and children many years prior to her responsibilities to her sister's children, however, this dramatic turn of events must have further thrust Muntz into the study of her most cherished subjects. Her preoccupation with domestic scenes is also of historical significance as an entry point to the female experience in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Canada.
