Joseph Holzer was an Austrian painter.
Holzer entered the engraving school of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1840, where he received the first prize, and then attended the landscape school of Thomas Ender and Franz Steinfeld. In 1846 he went on study trips to Germany , Belgium and Switzerland and then went to Munich in 1856 as an imperial scholarship holder for three years.

During his stay at the Counts Pálffy Castle Stampfen in the Carpathian Mountains, the majestic poetry of the native forests made a lasting impression on him; his first successes date from this time. Joseph Holzer died on January 17, 1876 in his hometown of Vienna.