Wilhelm Schmidt, professor, painter, and printmaker, was born in the city of Hildesheim, Germany on 30 January 1876. His family was Protestant and he christened Karl Friedrich Wilhelm. In the 1930s he officially changed his last name and affixed Hild to his name in reference to his city of birth.

Schmidthild studied at the teacher’s training college in Nordheim, the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hannover and at the Kunstakademie in Kassel. 

He began teaching in 1896 in a primary school in Hanover. In 1911 he took painting classes with Walther Thor in Munich. From 1931 to 1938, he was professor of art at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie in Hanau.  After retiring in 1938, Schmidthild moved to the city of Darmstadt and worked as a free-lance graphic artist, illustrator, and painter.

He was a member of the Pomeranian Artist Association, and he was invited to participate in the Great German Art Exhibitions held in Munich from 1941 to 1944. Schmidthild’s work in the collections of the Natural History Museum in Braunschweig, Municipal Museum of Szczecin, and the Kreismuseum in Bitterfeld

Schmidthild died in Germany on October 10, 1951.