Wilhelm Nagel was born in Mannheim in 1866. He was a landscape painter and etcher. He was a student of Ferdinand Keller in Karlsruhe from 1886 until 1898, where he became a professor himself in 1904. He attended the landscape class of the school of female painters in Karlsruhe. He took part in the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1905 and 19011.

He was a member of the in 1926 founded exhibition group ‘Die Schwarzwälder’ together with Hermann Dischler, Curt Liebich, Julius Heffner and Wilhelm Wickertsheimer, who had their first exhibition in 1927. Works of his are in the possession of the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe and Mannheim. He died in Baden-Baden in 1945.