Joan Foth was born in Elmira, NY in 1930. She attended the prestigious High School of Music and Art and then received a BA in Art History and Oriental Studies from Barnard College. In 1958, she was hired as an Adjunct Professor by the Washburn University Art Department, where she taught life drawing and watercolor for the next 25 years. She was best known for large-scale panoramic landscape painting, which included many different Kansas landscapes. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in Topeka, Kansas City, Lawrence, Oklahoma City, and Santa Fe. Foth passed away in 2010.