Bernhard Schneider began his art training at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Munich, Germany and later transferred to the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he studied under Oswald Aschenbach from 1866 to 1868. In 1878, he moved to Dresden, and eventually settled in Blasewitz, where he frequently exhibited his landscape paintings.

Schneider arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1885 to work for the American Panorama Company producing enormous canvases that would travel throughout the United States for entertainment purposes. Documentation shows that he worked with August Lohr and F.W. Heine and about 20 other artists on these panoramas: Storming of Missionary Ridge/Battle of Chattanooga, Battle of Atlanta, Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion and Christ’s Triumphal Entry Into Jerusalem.

As a painter, Schneider was well established. However, after 1885 he also began taking photographs. At this time photography was considered more of a science and certainly not a legitimate art form. His photography unveils the artist’s embrace of a new technology, using it to record scenes of his daily life and friends including images of the inside of the Wells Street Panorama Studio while painting one of the Jerusalem panoramas. When that industry concluded in 1889, Schneider moved to Cedarburg just north of Milwaukee. There he painted many large tranquil pastoral and Milwaukee River scenes. Even though he no longer lived in Milwaukee, he retained social and business ties with the Milwaukee art scene. He was a member of the Society of Milwaukee Artists; later known as the Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors. Throughout his life, he remained a bachelor. He seldom exhibited his work and rarely sought self-promotion. His exquisite landscapes remain as some of the state’s most obscure and underrated works of art. He painted in the German Academic style and later in the American Tonalist style.

© 10/23/2007 Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend, Wisconsin 6/2/2010