First professor of modern art history at Princeton University; curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1960-70. Seitz began his career as an artist, studying at Albright Art School, the Art Institute of Buffalo. He married fellow artist Irma J. Siegelman in 1938. Seitz worked for the Federal Artists Project during the Depression and as a draftsman for a rubber company in Buffalo before earning a BFA from the University of Buffalo in 1948. He taught at the university there and the state teacher's college until 1949.