Walter Elmer Schofield ROI RBA (September 10, 1866[a] – March 1, 1944) was an American Impressionist landscape and marine painter.

[5]: 281 The world auction record for a Schofield work was set on December 1, 2004, when Rapids in Winter sold for US$456,000 at Sotheby's NY.

[4]: 495  He moved to Paris in 1892, and studied at the Académie Julian under William Bouguereau, Gabriel Ferrier, and Henri Lucien Doucet.

[11] Schofield was among a group of Philadelphia artists – William Glackens, Edward Willis Redfield, John French Sloan, Everett Shinn, George Luks, James Moore Preston, Edward Davis, Charles Grafly, Stirling Calder, Hugh Breckenridge – who would meet at Henri's studio on Tuesday nights to discuss art and aesthetics.

[13][c] Schofield, Henri and Glackens were fascinated by the subtle atmospheric effects of Dutch Old Master painters,[8] and the trio made a bicycle tour through Belgium and the Netherlands, visiting churches and museums along the way.

[d] Schofield was also influenced by Les Nabis, "a group of French painters whose work emphasized bright colors, flattened forms and decorative patterning.

[1]: 93  Schofield had early professional success with restrained Pennsylvania winter landscapes,[e] painted in a Tonalist style "characterized by muted colors and soft, flowing brushwork".

[18] After his parents' deaths, Schofield would stay with his brother Albert[f] and family in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of the city.

[21] This was a short walk from the Valley Green section of Fairmount Park, and the picturesque Wissahickon Creek became the subject of a number of his paintings.

[g] Observing Redfield, Schofield gradually abandoned his Tonalist technique in favor of a more dynamic style "of expressionistic brushwork and a greater sense of form, structure and patterning that itself border[ed] on Post-Impressionism.

[i] Painter Emile Gruppe witnessed the results of Schofield's transformation in the first decade of the 20th century: "I can still remember the great National Academy shows.

As one of Schofield's contemporaries put it, "He is an open-air man, wholesome, healthy, and his art, sane and straightforward, reflects his temperament."

He could transform an ordinary English village into an organized yet delightful casual conglomeration of lines, angles, planes, and shapes.

[32] PAFA awarded him its 1903 Jennie Sesnan Gold Medal (best landscape painting exhibited by an American artist) for Breezy Day, Early Autumn; and its 1914 Temple Gold Medal (best oil painting exhibited by an American artist) for The Hill Country.

[1]: 102  The National Arts Club in New York City awarded him its 1913 gold medal and $1,000 prize for The Spring Thaw.

[39] The Art Institute of Chicago hosted a one-man-show of his paintings in 1920,[40] and awarded him its 1921 Spalding $1,000 Prize for Morning Light.

[9] The National Academy of Design mounted a memorial exhibition of his work in 1945,[4]: 495  as did the Woodmere Art Museum that same year.

[44] The Payne Gallery at Moravian College mounted a 1988 retrospective exhibition: W. Elmer Schofield: Proud Painter of Modest Lands.