One of the first women artists in Canada to receive international recognition, Laura Muntz's evocative paintings of children and childhood have been exhibited worldwide. In this overview of Muntz's life and work, Joan Murray captures the breadth and sophistication of Muntz's oeuvre. Trained in France and inspired by the Impressionists, Laura Muntz (1860-1930) imbued her paintings with a striking, atmospheric treatment of light. Energetic and determined, Muntz created a large number of canvases, watercolours, pastels, and drawings that communicate a deep sympathy with her subjects - most often children or women with children. As she continued her career in Toronto and Montreal, her works revealed flair, inventiveness, and a rich sense of colour and layering. Muntz lived and painted in Canada to the end of her life, exhibiting widely to considerable renown. Laura Muntz Lyall: Impressions of Women and Childhood provides an extensive chronology and exhibition history, as well as the artist's own words in a selection of previously unpublished correspondence. Reproducing more than ninety paintings in colour, this book offers new insight into the work of one of Canada's important artists.

Joan Murray, an independent curator and art historian, is considered one of the most accessible of Canadian art writers and has studied and exhibited Tom Thomson for four decades. Since the late 1960s, she has been a curator of several institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, and director of the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa (1974-99) and the McMichael Canadian Art Gallery in Kleinburg (2005-6). Murray was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1992 and has been honoured with the Senior Award from the Association of Cultural Executives, the Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Ontario Association of Art Galleries and the Order of Ontario. She lives in Toronto, Ontario

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