Joe Dunne was born in Dublin in 1957 and graduated from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 1978. His work has most often remained within the traditional genres of still life, landscape and portrait painting with occasional forays into more stylised or abstract pieces. He is equally accomplished in watercolours, oils and his preferred medium of egg tempera, and has also successfully explored print making. His paintings have won prizes at the Arnotts National Portrait Awards and the Keating McLaughlin Medal, for a group portrait, at the RHA Annual in 2006. He was awarded 1st prize in the inaugural Davy Portrait Awards in 2008.
Commissions by the Office of Public Works include his portraits of former Taoiseach Eamon deValera and of President Mary McAleese.
His work is included in the collections of AXA Insurance Ltd., The Royal Dublin Society, The Office of Public Works, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council,
The National University of Ireland at Maynooth, Ballinglen Art Foundation Archive, The National Self-Portrait Collection, The Irish Medical Organisation, Dublin Dental School and Hospital, and The Boyle Civic Collection.
He is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and held the position of Principal of the RHA School of Drawing from 2011-2014.