The American artist, who became part of the flourishing Lower Manhattan arts scene in the 1980s, showing in the East Village and exhibition spaces such as Artists Space and the Drawing Center. Baechler rose to prominence with his depictions of everyday objects and naive simple figures that appeal to the sentimental longing for childhood.

As a student at Cooper Union, in the late 1970s, Baechler found himself surrounded by the works of Pop artists and Neo-Expressionists, who played a big role in influencing his style. He got acquainted with Tony Shafrazi, who was focusing on graffiti-oriented works, and founded a downtown gallery that represented Baechler, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and eventually Jean-Michel Basquiat.
His use of various mediums in his paintings by combining drawings and collage. His imagery includes nostalgic banal objects that draw associations with childhood; grammar school primers, old maps, and children’s drawings, a skull, a rose, a globe, and a soccer ball. Despite the associations with the graffiti art movement, however, the artist emphasizes that his art is rooted in abstraction.

Donald Baechler

Donald Baechler, a member of the East Village art scene in 1980s New York, is known for his painting-collage-drawing works depicting of childhood imagery and nostalgic ephemera like grammar school primers, old maps, and children’s drawings, or purposely cliché motifs such as a skull, a rose, a globe, and a soccer ball.

Baechler is famous for depicting simple everyday objects that allude to the cultural symbolism of nostalgia. In his works the artist combines collage, drawing, and painting; Baechler is concerned with form and emphasizes the importance of the line and balance.


The Rose is a prominent motive in Baechler's work. The flower's symbolism is presented with simple naïvete. The pure aesthetics of this narrative-absent flower reminiscent of childhood memories, when conscious judgments are not yet present. The background of this "Blue Rose" colour silkscreen is rich in fading detail while the foreground gains its definition.

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“ The world of the background rarely blends into the world of the foreground. „

—Donald Baechler