About the Artist

Bill Schmidt has been a professional landscape painter for more than 30 years after careers as a nuclear engineer, consultant, and founder and president of a training firm.  His art training consisted of working with several superb outdoor landscape painters and studying the masters of French and American Impressionism and the New England school of marine painters. (His undergraduate degree from Cornell University was in chemical and nuclear engineering.)

His distinctive paintings are realistic yet impressionistic, painterly but with enough attention to detail so that the subject matter is easily recognizable.  He paints outdoors in all seasons at home and in his travels, from New England to California and in Venice, Paris, and Bermuda.  Even the foreign scenes are mostly done en plein air using a Pochade Box and archival boards when it’s too difficult to fly with a full-size easel.  Blogs on this website describe how he creates a painting and some history about his key instructors.

Bill lives in Rockville, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC, with his wife, Dottie; they have three children and five grandchildren. Besides painting, Bill enjoys reading about art and artists, visiting art museums, and attending opera and theater.  When working in his studio, he always paints to opera recordings because the music energizes him!

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

* American Impressionist Society (AIS) – Signature Member

* American Society of Marine Artists (ASMA)

* Washington Society of Landscape Painters (WSLP) – past president and longtime member of this organization that marked its 100^th anniversary in 2013.

* California Art Club

PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION AND SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

* 100 Plein Air Painters of the Mid-Atlantic – One of the artists selected for this historic book by artist/writer Gary Pendleton; has bio and four paintings included and participated in group show of these artists at McBride Gallery in Annapolis in November 2014.

*  Art in Embassies Program of the U.S. Department of State – Longtime participant, with paintings selected for exhibit in seven residences of Ambassadors: Praia, Cape Verde; Managua, Nicaragua; Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Vilnius, Lithuania; Taipei, Taiwan; Athens, Greece;  and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

  * Juried into national and/or regional shows of AIS and ASMA as well as the Maritime Art Exhibit in Coos Bay, Ore., repeated shows at the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, VT,  and the California Art Club in Altadena, CA. An Artist Member of the Salmagundi Club of New York City for 14 years until his resignation in 2020, he participated in more than 30 juried exhibits, including having a painting selected for an exchange exhibit with The Netherlands. His work also was selected for the University of Maryland University College 2013 Biennial Exhibition and a 2015 invitational exhibition of Maryland artists in a dual showing at the Maryland State House and McBride Gallery in Annapolis.

* Solo or group shows at the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC, National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Md., the William Gilchrist Gallery in Cumberland, Md., and the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wis. Also shows with the Washington Society of Landscape Painters at the Arts Club of Washington, DC, the Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, MD, the Athaneum in Old Town Alexandria, VA, the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, MD, and various commercial galleries in Alexandria, VA and Lewes, Delaware.

* Master Artist and Mentor for juried artists in the 2011 Artists Colony at the Gettysburg (Pa.) Arts Festival.

 * One of ten prominent plein air painters from across the United States invited to spend ten days painting at the Forbes-owned Chateau de Balleroy in Normandy, France.  A group exhibit of the resulting works was held at the Forbes Gallery in New York City.

* Paintings in the permanent collections of the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, Paget, Bermuda; the Art Gallery of the University of Maryland University College, College Park, Md.; and Cornell University’s Olin Library in Ithaca, NY.

IN PRINT

  * Selected as the artist to represent Maryland in the book A Kids’ Guide to Drawing America published by Rosen Publishing Corporation

* Articles by and about him and his techniques and plein air work have appeared in national and regional publications including Chesapeake Bay, American Artist, The Artist’s Magazine, Art Business News, Art & Frame Review, Elan magazine, and Washington area newspapers.

REPRODUCTIONS

Reproduction of his paintings have been made as serigraphs, lithographs, and giclees; selected images can be seen in the Reproductions section.

*A serigraph is a limited edition fine art reproduction individually produced from an original painting by a silkscreen process.   Seven serigraphs are available through the artist.  Each was hand-pulled using about 100 color separations each.  

*A lithograph is a fine art reproduction of an image made by a photographic color separation process and then printed. Three images of Maryland small towns are available through the artist.  

*A giclee is a fine art reproduction produced from a digitally scanned electronic file of the original work that can be printed on a variety of materials in a range of sizes with nearly flawless color representation.  Selected paintings have been made into giclees by Gleedsville Art and McBride Gallery; McBride adds new images frequently throughout the year.  By clicking here you can view giclees currently available at Gleedsville or at McBride.  The 18 countryside scenes selected by Kaiser Permanent for its Ashburn, Va. medical center are also available to the public through Gleedsville.  

*NOTE: A custom giclee can be produced of any of Bill's paintings in the size and material (canvas, paper) that you prefer; just contact the artist for more information.

OTHER ART SERVICES

Bill is available for judging shows and for group and individual critiques.  See Demos and Workshops for details.

Painting on location in Venice