Born in Worchester, Massachusetts, Schmidt was a self-taught landscape artist who lived on the East Coast until the early 1900s. He then moved to Santa Barbara, CA where he exhibited at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 and had a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1917. He also spent time living and painting in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Schmidt was a member of the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City and the Art Alliance of Philadelphia.