Bill Snyder

Bill Snyder was born in South Florida, attended the University of Florida on a football scholarship, and later received a B.F.A. from East Tennessee State University. His master’s and doctoral work was in Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University. After thirty-two years in public education as an art teacher, senior high school principal, and district executive, he retired in 1990 to pursue his dream of working full time creating one-of-a-kind artwork. Bill primarily creates wood sculptures and oil paintings, and is honored to have work in private collections throughout the United States. Utilizing his fine arts background and lifelong fascination with the look and feel of wood, he has designed and created numerous full-sized carousel horses. Over the past ten years he has gradually shifted his emphasis to designing equine subjects that focus on the beauty and excitement of real horses.

“I love to try to capture the spirit and personality of each of the horses that I create. Some have a very calm, gentle manner while others are much more active and dramatic. The challenge is to see beyond physical characteristics and to create art works that capture the essence, the soul, of that equine spirit. That is the challenge of all artists: to create powerful works that portray to others the very spirit of their subject, whatever that subject may be, and go beyond the obvious to give life to their art.”

Bill has been a member of Highlands Art League since 2002, and is also a member of the Lake Placid Art League and the Lake Wales Art Center. He teaches sculpture classes and seminars focusing on equine art, and has exhibited at South Florida Community College. He has chaired the Lake Placid Art League annual show for the past seven years and is an active art show judge in south and central Florida. Bill recently carved a memorial bench for Bill Baggs’ State Park in south Florida, depicting swallowtail kites and the Cape Florida lighthouse, and is currently working on several new paintings and wood sculptures.