First taught by his father, Ferdinand (1740-1799), and his uncle Franz (1749-1822), both professional painters, Wilhelm attended the drawing academy in Mannheim, where he mainly learned the technical aspects of the métier. Artistically his father's teaching had greater impact, for he encouraged his son to copy Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes. The young Kobell's drawings, prints, and paintings indeed showed much indebtedness to artists such as Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683) and Philips Wouwermans (1619-1668). From 1789 Kobell collaborated on landscapes with his father, such as the Aschaffenburg cycle (Neue Pinakothek, Munich, and Schloss Johannisburg, Aschaffenburg). He also traveled to Munich, where in 1790 the Elector Palatine Karl Theodor bought two of his landscapes and provided him with stipends to travel to England and Italy. Kobell used the money to finance his move to Munich in 1793, however, where he became court painter for Karl Theodor. The change of scenery influenced his art tremendously, and it was in Munich that Kobell developed full artistic independence, concentrating on the effects of natural light and the use of bright colors. In 1797 he married Anna Maria Theresa von Krempelhuber. Besides landscapes and portraits of family members, he also painted military scenes. In 1806 Kobell received a commission from Maximilian I Joseph, king of Bavaria, to paint a cycle of seven paintings commemorating the Napoleonic Wars. Two years later Crown Prince Ludwig I commissioned another cycle of twelve works, on which Kobell worked for seven years. During this period he traveled to Vienna (1809) and Paris (1809-10); from 1814 to 1826 he taught landscape painting at the Munich Academy, where he failed to have much impact. During the last part of his career, Kobell typically painted encounters between citizens and farmers in the countryside near Munich.