Schomer Lichtner first studied with Gustave Moeller at Milwaukee State Teachers College and later at the Milwaukee Art Students’ League and the Art Institute of Chicago. By 1926, he had entered the New York Art Students’ League. He returned to Wisconsin in 1928 to study art history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison under Oskar Hagen.
He married fellow-artist Ruth Grotenrath in 1934. and both became involved in the Federal Works Progress Administration's (WPA) art programs; Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) and the Public Works Art Project (PWAP). One of his most notable works was a five-panel mural for the Sheboygan (WI) post office in 1939, The Lake - The Pioneer - Present City - Indian Life - Agriculture. In 1940 he painted City Workers - Farm Family - Products of Industry & Agriculture at the Hamtramck Branch Post Office, Detroit Michigan and another Hodgen's Mill at the Hodgenville Post Office, Kentucky in 1943. As a mural painter for public buildings he painted in the Regionalist style, which exemplified the virtues of rural, middle class life. During this time, he first started to use cows as a major theme. Lichtner relates that his interest in Holstein cows came from summers spent at Holy Hill in Washington County, Wisconsin.
Lichtner traveled to Japan with Alan Watts in 1955 reflecting a lifelong interest in Japanese art. In the early 1960s, he began teaching drawing and design, at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He was also a member of the Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors.
Two hallmark motifs prominent in Lichtner’s later work are cows, which relate to his Wisconsin environment, and ballerinas, which reflected his interest in the ballet. Both are whimsically patterned in unmodeled but brightly-colored flat forms. Lichtner’s gentle sense of humor is evident in his later cow works.