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LAURA ADELINE MUNTZ, O.S.A., A.R.C.A. PORTRAIT OF EMILY ELLIOTT, oil on board; signed and dated indistinctly 25 ins x 18 1/2 ins; 62.5 cms x 46.3 cms Provenance: Acquired from the artist. The Estate of Emily Louise Orr Elliott. By descent to the present owner, Ontario. Exhibited: Loan Portrait Exhibition, Women's Art Association of Canada, Toronto, April 3-15, no.141 (loaned by Dr. J.E. Elliott). Note: Laura Muntz was one of the audacious modern painters who led the way in Canada in rendering the world using the pure and intense colour of the Impressionists. Throughout her lifetime of work, her treatment of her varied subjects was marked by great breadth and freedom, indeed of using her brush in a manner considered "almost reckless," by a writer in the Evening Telegram (Toronto), May 3, 1894. Her achievements were numerous: besides showing her work five times at the Paris Salon (1894-98), she became a member of the Ontario Society of Artists (in 1891), and the first woman member of its Executive Council (in 1899), as well as an Associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy (in 1895), and an artist whose work remained in the public eye through the annual exhibitions of these societies and many others, both in Canada and abroad. She won honours, including an Honourable Mention at the Salon (1896), a Silver Medal at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo (1901), and a Bronze at the St. Louis World's Fair Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904). In her study in Paris, Muntz, age thirty-one, followed a new development in art education for women: sketching from the nude model as well as attending lectures. The ateliers in Paris disciplined her natural gifts, already sharpened by considerable study in Hamilton, Toronto and London. Through her years at the school she selected, the Académie Colarossi, working with various professors such as Paul-Joseph Blanc (1846-1904), she became more proficient at painting the figure and an expert in ways to depict costume. When she returned from Paris in 1898, she was an authority on how to create an impression of space and model volume through plastic form and how to paint more broadly, to emphasize the mass, not the detail. She had learned of Impressionism too, and its distinctive handling of light and atmosphere and was accustomed to conveying an "impression" of what the eye sees at a particular moment, rather than a detailed record of appearance, in her work. Her portrait of Emily Elliott (née Orr) (1867-1952), one of Muntz's students who was later herself a painter, is a dazzling example of Muntz's work at its height. In the painting, Muntz presented the subject in a flattering, yet honest way and with an effect of refined vivacity, highlighting the sitter's elegant, fresh face and slender body against a dark, broadly painted neutral background and adding a few notes of colour to Elliott's eyes and lips, her gorgeous dress with its gauzy, frilly collar and the yellow roses she holds. Typical of her work is the rich tone of the picture, the wonderfully painted fabric with its saucy combination of pinks, blues, purples and greys, and the light effect which leads to a sense that the work captures a single moment in time and emphasizes the sitter's personality. Essay by JOAN MURRAY