William Schneider OPAM
William A. Schneider OPAM is a full time, professional American artist working in oil and pastel. Painting from life, he seeks to capture the emotion of a particular moment and place, and views figures, landscape or still life as opportunities to explore the effects of light on form.
Bill initially studied art at the University of Illinois at Urbana but upon graduation he began a career in the music business. In the mid ‘80s, he started a successful Finance career.
In 1990 he entered the Saturday Program at the American Academy of Art in Chicago “for fun”! He studied figure drawing with William Parks and oil painting with Ted Smuskiewicz for the next eight years. As he became more serious about his art, he continued his education through workshops with Master Artists including Carolyn Anderson, Dan Gerhartz OPAM, Scott Burdick, Harley Brown OPAM, Scott Christensen, Huihan Liu OPAM, David Leffel OPAM and Richard Schmid.
In 2010 he sold his interest in DiMeo Schneider and Associates (now named Fiducient Advisors) to become a full time artist.
William commented on his choice of media, “I find that oil and pastel complement each other. I particularly love the way pastel lends itself to softer edges and an Impressionistic scintillation that captures the natural translucence of flesh!”
Bill’s work has been featured in numerous magazines and books and over the years has won many awards including: 1st Place in the Portrait Society of America’s annual Member’s Exhibition; the Prix de Pastel (Best of Show) in the International Association of Pastel Societies’ Biennial Exhibition; The John Steven Jones purchase award in the 27th Bosque Art Classic – his winning painting, “Morning Meditation” is now part of the Museum’s permanent collection.
Bill lives with his wife Caren, splitting their time between Crystal Lake, IL and Naples FL.