Donald Baechler (1956 – 2022) studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Cooper Union, and the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste in Germany.
Baechler’s material draws from a multitude of sources – Pop art, folk art, outsider art, classical art history, and pop culture, to name a few. He cited Cy Twombly and Giotto as his primary influences. His colorful paintings and sculptures were created through a cumulative process of combining fragments and layers of collected materials and images, coming together in what he called an “illusion of history.” Baechler was concerned with formal aspects such as line, form, and balance, but viewed this traditional methodology through a contemporary mindset, borrowing and building from his classical influences.
Baechler has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Fischer Landau Center for Art (Queens), Nassau County Museum of Art, and Tony Shafrazi Gallery (New York). His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Musée National d’Art Moderne (Paris), among others.
Lithographs and drawings by Baechler were included in projects at St. Luke’s and Roosevelt Hospitals in the spring of 2007.