Joseph Trippetti was born in Philadelphia in 1923. While attending the University of California at Berkeley, he was drafted into the army and served from 1943 to 1945. He attended the Philadelphia College of Art from 1946 to 1949, and also studied to be a silversmith at the Sheffield School of Arts and Crafts in England from 1950 to 1951.

Inspired by medieval tapestries, Trippetti became well-known for creating cloisonnes with contemporary themes and motifs, including abstract works with non-objective imagery. His work was accepted into numerous art shows and was awarded prizes at the Wichita Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibition and the Miami National Ceramic Exhibition. His works are in the collections of the Wichita Center for the Arts in Kansas; the Lowe Gallery of Art in Miami, Florida; the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire; and the Long Beach Museum of Art in California.

Trippetti supervised the Currier Art Center, was a teacher at the Worcester Craft Center in Massachusetts, and served as Director of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen from 1962 to 1969. In 1980, an exhibition of his work was organized by the Prestige Art Gallery in Peabody, MA and a book "Joseph Trippetti and Cloisonne" was published. Tripetti currently lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.