Lila Hetzel (Lila Barr Hetzel) was born in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Edgewood, the youngest child of Pittsburgh artist and Scalp Level School founder George Hetzel. Initially, George Hetzel did not approve of his daughter becoming an artist and would not give her art instruction. He later relented and Lila studied at the Pittsburgh School of Design under D. B Walkley, a New England landscapist, and Martin B. Leisser, a Scalp Level artist. She traveled to Europe to she studied the Old Masters, where she was influenced by Rembrandt’s use of light, Rueben’s color and Michelangelo’s force. Her own works illustrate that balance and design in a composition are as important as color. She painted alongside her father at the Hetzel Studio in Somerset, Pennsylvania. She later moved to Pittsburgh, where she opened a studio and became a charter member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh. Although Lila lived in Pittsburgh, later in life, she would return to the studio in Somerset where she stayed and painted much of the year, returning to Pittsburgh only during the winter. During this time, she created a series of interior paintings of the Hetzel Studio, titled "Old Fashioned Corners". She exhibited at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh Playhouse, Arts and Crafts Center of Pittsburgh, Gillespie Galleries, Westmoreland County Museum of Art, and Jennerstown Art Gallery. Other exhibitions, including one-woman shows were held in Somerset, Ligonier and Indiana, Pennsylvania.