Donald Baechler was born in Connecticut in 1956. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art from 1974 to 1977, followed by a year at New York's Cooper Union. Baechler then studied abroad in Frankfurt am Main at the Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule fuer Bildende Künste.

Living and working at the same time as artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, Baechler, in the same line as those artists, incorporates childlike naive imagery in his paintings. His primary influence comes from artists like Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet. Another inspiration comes from the practice of Andy Warhol, who made a famous series of photograph of the young Donald Baechler. Taking everyday objects as his subject such as flowers, houses, globes, and other familiar objects, through their enlargement, they become symbols for universal themes like community, identity, sexuality and mortality. His artistic process combines drawings, paintings, collages, printmaking and graphic art. His creative process begins amidst a vast collection of popular images and objects, and he's inspired by classical art history, the New York School, contemporary art, folk art, outsider art, pop culture and childhood. As a result, his paintings are condensed versions of a cumulative process, built in fragments and layers to create what he calls an "illusion of history." 

Baechler’s work kan be seen in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, among other institutions worldwide.

Baechler lives and works in New York City.