Edward Schmidt is an established figurative artist whose skill and style evokes the old masters. Schmidt is a masterful draughtsman, and his drawings and paintings have been shown extensively in the United States and Europe. He was one of the founding faculty members of the New York Academy of Art in New York City, and is currently a full-time faculty member there.

Schmidt earned a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Brooklyn College, and studied drawing and painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Schmidt won the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome, and continued his studies there. He has received painting grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ingram Merrill, Elizabeth Greenshields, and Adolph Gottlieb Foundations. He was awarded the Classical America Arthur B. Ross Award for painting and won, with Michael Graves, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Clos Pegase Competition. His work has been included in numerous museum exhibitions, including shows at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, the Arnot Museum, Elmira, New York, the Bayly Museum at the University of Virginia, the Brooklyn Museum, the Gibbs Museum, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Museum shows in Europe include the Centre Georges Pompidou and Musée de la Grande Combe in France. He is also represented by the More Gallery in Philadelphia and the Hackett Freedman Gallery in San Francisco.