After the war, he joined the Art Students League of New York where his father taught, and continued to study painting with him in the artist's community of Ogunquit, Maine.

He developed streamlined abstract forms and planes, often held in place by rigging wire, drawing from Constructivism and his lifelong interest in naval and airplane design.

In 1966, his work was presented in Kynaston McShine’s survey of 1960’s sculpture, "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum, an exhibition that helped establish Minimalism.

He showed with Reese Palley Gallery in New York, and then with the "Park Place Group" of sculptors, including Mark di Suvero, Ronald Bladen, and Robert Grosvenor in 1968.

von Schlegell began to design and build his first large-scale outdoor sculpture for the Storm King Art Center in 1969–1970.

[4] His students of note include Don Gummer, Roni Horn, Jessica Stockholder, Ann Hamilton, Matthew Barney, Sean Landers, and Katsuhisa Sakai.

[1] In 2012 the David von Schlegell retrospective at the China Art Objects Gallery in Los Angeles, included Five Birds from 1988.

After dedicating his Untitled (L's), he also had an exhibition in IUPUI's Lecture Hall and at the Herron School of Art displaying his photographs and drawings from the project.