Bill Schmidt is a landscape painter whose style reflects his admiration for the French Impressionists Monet, Sisley, and early 20th century American Impressionists. Like these plein air painters, Bill works outdoors and in all seasons on a variety of topics: countrysides and panoramas, street scenes, gardens and especially marines. Bill took up painting as a hobby more than 30 years ago, but landscape painting became his full-time profession in 1984. In the "Arts For Parks" national competitions, he received the Award For Excellence as one of the top 100 paintings (among thousands submitted) three times, most recently in 1999. He was presented the Tischer Award for Excellence in the 68th annual Cumberland Valley Exhibition being held at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in June 2000. In the United States, Schmidt is represented by six galleries at which he has had numerous one-man shows. Through his Tokyo representative, he was the featured artist at 18 shows in Japan between November 1993 and April 1998. Bill is a longtime member and former president of the Washington Society of Landscape Painters and is a popular guest speaker at local art organizations and also conducts demonstrations, workshops and judging of shows