Donald Baechler American, 1956-2022

  • “I would guess out of every thousand images I save, I probably use one or two.”

    Photo Credit: Jason Schmidt

    “I would guess out of every thousand images I save, I probably use one or two.”

  • Donald Baechler’s (1956–2022) artistic practice is characterized by a sustained engagement with contrast and contradiction. His works convey an apparent directness and a distinct naïveté, while their carefully constructed backgrounds, composed of collaged elements and layered surfaces, reveal a deliberate and methodical process. Baechler’s creative approach originated in an extensive archive of popular imagery and found objects, accumulated over years of photographing, observing, and collecting. His paintings may be understood as distilled outcomes of this cumulative practice, in which disparate fragments and stratified layers are synthesized into what the artist described as an “illusion of history.” Among his principal influences, Baechler identified Cy Twombly and Giotto. Baechler first exhibited his work in 1981 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, where his pieces were presented alongside those of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His oeuvre encompasses painting, collage, printmaking, and sculpture.

  • Untitled, 2010 Handmade cast paper 42 x 34 in. (framed) Edition of 9

    Untitled, 2010
    Handmade cast paper
    42 x 34 in. (framed)
    Edition of 9

  • Born in 1956 in Hartford, Connecticut, Baechler lived and worked in New York. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore from 1974 to 1977 and subsequently attended Cooper Union in New York from 1977 to 1978. Baechler’s work is represented in numerous major institutional collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, among others.

  • Works
    • Donald Baechler, Sit Scent, 2016
      Sit Scent, 2016
    • Donald Baechler, Untitled (Cast Flowers), 2006
      Untitled (Cast Flowers), 2006
    • Donald Baechler, Untitled (Skull), 2010
      Untitled (Skull), 2010
    • Donald Baechler, Yellow and Blue, 2012
      Yellow and Blue, 2012
    • Donald Baechler, Purply-brown Flower, 2010
      Purply-brown Flower, 2010
    • Donald Baechler, Purply-brown Flower, 2010
      Purply-brown Flower, 2010
    • Donald Baechler, Flower I, 1997
      Flower I, 1997
    • Donald Baechler, Flower II, 1997
      Flower II, 1997
    • Donald Baechler, Flower III, 1997
      Flower III, 1997
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Blue), 2015
      Rose (Blue), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Lavender), 2015
      Rose (Lavender), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Peach), 2015
      Rose (Peach), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Red), 2015
      Rose (Red), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Brown), 2015
      Rose (Brown), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Rose (Yellow), 2015
      Rose (Yellow), 2015
    • Donald Baechler, Suitcase, 2003
      Suitcase, 2003
    • Donald Baechler, Head, 2003
      Head, 2003
    • Donald Baechler, Black Flowers, 2019
      Black Flowers, 2019
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 1996
      Flower, 1996
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 2004
      Flower, 2004
    • Donald Baechler, Flower, 2004
      Flower, 2004
    • Donald Baechler, Green Carnation, 1993
      Green Carnation, 1993
    • Donald Baechler, Coney Island, 1994
      Coney Island, 1994
    • Donald Baechler, Tulip, 2003
      Tulip, 2003

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