Impressionistic, realistic, classical, romantic...while people don’t always agree on how to describe the art of Richard Schmid, there is no mistaking it. Painterly brushstrokes, meticulous composition, subtle tonality and use of luxurious, luminous color set his works distinctly apart. Schmid prefers to paint all prima, completing a work of extreme accuracy in just one sitting. The first brushstrokes blend with the last, conveying the excitement of the artist calls "immediate intimacy."

Schmid, born in Chicago in 1934, has spent many years sketching and painting throughout North America, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. His roving nature also applies to his subject matter; restlessly, he captures everything in sight, composing landscapes, nudes, wildlife, still lifes and children’s portraits.

Schmid credits his instructors the landscape painter Gianni Cilfone and Professor William Mosby of Chicago’s American Academy of Art for much of his success. But he also acknowledges a debt to the great masters, among them the Spanish portraitists Goya and Velasquez and the Impressionists Cassatt and Manet.

Schmid’s work has been widely acclaimed. He has won the Allied Artists of America Gold Medal, the American Watercolor Society Gold Medal, and won the top award in the 1987 National Parks Academy. He has had no less than 41 one-man shows and his work has been exhibited at the National Academy of Design, the Smithsonian, the Gilcrease Institute and the Beijing Exhibition Center in China.