Canadian artist Joe Smith received his art education from the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. He began his career as a staff artist at The Gazette in Montreal illustrating for both the news and advertising departments. In addition to his regular job he also did freelance work for a variety of companies and printers.

From Montreal, he moved to Toronto where he was promoted to the National Office of the Southam Newspapers. There he worked as creative director which also involved the development of audio visuals as well as traveling the country giving creative seminars and workshops.
 
Continuing his climb up the corporate ladder his next stop was at The Spectator in Hamilton, Ontario.  As the executive in charge of public relations, promotion and marketing he was the “front man”, going out into the community representing the newspaper at special events and as Joe puts it “Eating my way through hundreds of rubber chicken dinners.”

In 1996 he decided to get back to his roots as a fine artist. “It was something that was always in the back of my mind … to get back to my art when I retired. After some health problems at age of 46, I decided life could be too short and I was not going to wait. So I packed it in with the newspaper, dusted off my paints and palettes, started over again as a fine artist … although I still do commercial work for builders and developers.”