(b. 1956)
Donald Baechler has amassed a great inventory of worldly images. Recorded on slides and collected in the archives of his enormous Lower Manhattan studio, they are the sources for many of the compelling images in his paintings and prints. The cast of characters, which also includes himself, come from every source imaginable, and are stamped, silk-screened, projected, drawn, painted, printed or collaged onto surfaces. Then the process begins: underpainting, overpainting, canceling, adding, subtracting, editing until the final work emerges.
Baechler came of age as an artist in the early 1980s when he began exhibiting internationally. Not only is Baechler one of the important artists of his generation, he is also thoughtful and articulate in regard to the contemporary art world. As a second-generation pop artist, Baechler’s paintings and prints are a reflection of a passion for collecting pop images and objects. Combining these images with his own uninhibited style of painting, Baechler creates what he calls an “illusion of history.”
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Guggenheim Museum, New York
New York Public Library, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland
Centre George Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland
Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen, Germany
Museum Ludwig, Budapest
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
Städtische Galerie Schloss Wolfsburg, Germany
Lehnbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Musée Strassbourg, France
Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janiero, Brazil
Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden
Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia
Springfield Art Museum, Missouri
St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California
Orlando Museum of Art, Florida
William Allen Memorial Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio
