Jo Ann Walters has been described by William Eggleston as one of the few, independently original photographers working in color today. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, St Louis Museum of Art, the Biblioteque Nationale, and the Center for Fine Photography, Bombay among others.

She is a Guggenheim Fellow and has received support from the Kittredge Foundation, the Ferguson Award for Portraiture administered by the Friends of Photography and the Peter S. Reed Foundation acknowledging distinguished writers, choreographers, filmmakers and visual artists in their fields. She was nominated for both the San Francisco Foundation Award by Sandra Phillips of SFMoMA and Anonymous was a Woman. Publications include Sally Eauclaire’s New Color / New Work, the MoMA’s The Pleasure and Terror of Domestic Comfort and the final issue of DoubleTake magazine.
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Most recently her work has been exhibited at the Singapore Photography Festival, the Photo Review International: 17 photographers from Around the World: curated by Leslie Martin, FRESH Works: curated by George Slade of the Photographic Resource Center in Boston and Influential, School of Visual Arts, NYC. She has been on the faculties of Yale University and Rhode Island School of Design. Currently she is an Associate Professor at Purchase College, The State University of New York.