Joan Waltemath became the first non-interim director of the L.E. Hoffberger School after the departure of Grace Hartigan, a position Waltemath occupied for 13 years. During that time, she entirely redesigned the program, giving it the basic structure it retains to this day and, eventually, doubling the number of students enrolled from 14 to 28. 

Waltemath received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1976 and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College in 1993. Before becoming Director of the Hoffberger School, Waltemath held adjunct positions at The Cooper Union School of Architecture and Princeton University.

Her practice engages dialogically with other media and disciplines. Her paintings respond to architecture, events, visions, and historical frameworks. Waltemath’s eight large-scale paintings, The Treaty of 1868: an Epic (2009-2018), address her relationship to the genocide of the Plains Indian tribes.

In the early 2000s Waltemath collaborated with Architects Büttner, Braun, Newmann to design the façade for St. Canisius Pfarrkirche   in Berlin, Charlottenburg. She is also involved in the construction of the Joan Waltemath Foundation in Hooper, Nebraska, with Ballman/Khapalova architects.

Her work is represented in the collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, the National Gallery of Art (Washington), the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Waltemath is an Editor-at-Large for The Brooklyn Rail, where she continues to write about art.