Joanne Seltzer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Charleston, Wes Virginia. After having majored in journalism at Northwestern University ( she graduated in 1963), she gained her fine arts degree at the University of Michigan. Ms. Seltzer has also attended the New School for Social Research, the Pratt Institute and New York University, at Which schools she gained invaluable experience in photography, photo-silkscreen and design. In Addition, Ms. Seltzer has lectured at several institutions, including the school of Visual Arts in New York, the University of Virginia and the University of Iowa.

Ms. Seltzer's works are realistic constructions which are sometimes serial in nature. These collages and photomontages are influenced by the artist's childhood; therefore , they are somewhat nostalgic, but are not sentimentalized. Each image has a dose of hard reality: for example a deception of the young artist dancing is superimposed upon the checks her father wrote for her lessons. Other such anti-sentimental touches are the words and phrases Ms. Seltzer occasionally includes in her images. Indeed, Ms. Seltzers art is highly personal, and her art and life are closely linked together; nonetheless, her work provides something to which anyone can relate.