He chose as his field detailed documentation as an illustrator for botanical and zoological reference books and free compositions in the tradition of realism.
Schmidthild produced a large variety of paintings, sketches and illustrations with local reference such as landscapes, animals and maritime scenes of Mecklenburg.
Schmidthild repeated his study trips and longer excursions to Argentina and Brazil (1919), Mecklenburg (1924), Neuburg am Inn (1925) and to Halle (Saale) and Italy at the Lake Garda, Venice, Verona und Bolzano (1926).
There he developed various vedute with a local reference and illustrations (colored drypoint) for specialised books, for example the zoologists Carl Floericke[3] and Walter Heimroth, 1929 und 1930.
[10] The Kreismuseum Bitterfeld owns an etching showing a lady in art nouveau style[11] A large number of his works were brought to the US by American soldiers returning home in the late 1940s.