She studied with Frank Duveneck, who was a mentor and significant influence, and William Merritt Chase, who introduced her to Impressionism.

[5] She enrolled in the McMicken School of Design, now the Art Academy of Cincinnati, in 1884 and studied there off an on until 1912[1][5] under Fernand H. Lungren[4] and Frank Duveneck,[1][5] also from Covington.

[3] Selden was one of Duveneck's favorite students[6] and he became her mentor who recommended her for commissions and assisted her in having her works shown in "male-dominated" exhibitions.

According to author Estill Curtis Pennington, "Frank Duveneck and his followers, Dixie Selden and John Alberts, continued to paint in a venerable high-art style, informed by seventeenth-century precedent and lit by Impressionist innovation.

"[7] Selden won prizes for her oil paintings and portraits that she began to exhibit at the Covington Art Club in 1890.

[3] Beginning in 1895, Selden spent the summers in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Boothbay, Maine, and in France at Normandy and Brittany.

[9] Selden traveled extensively with fellow artist Emma Mendenhall (1873–1964) throughout the United States, Europe, Mexico, China, Japan, and the Middle East,[5][10] painting landscapes, genre scenes, and portraits "with a "broad stroke and sprightly brush.

According to biographer Richard M. Sacksteder, she is "one of the premier Impressionists from the Greater Cincinnati area", best known for her "lively landscapes" and portraits.

[19] Called "the little one" by Duveneck,[3] she was a petite woman who had a "vivacious, joyous personality" and established many close, lifelong friendships.

[20] Selden died suddenly of a heart attack the night of a dinner party in her Walnut Hills house in 1935.

[23][24][25][26] Herbert Greer French said in the foreword of the exhibition catalog, "Honest and forceful in her art, as in her life, she gave of her best to every undertaking.