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.

An important member of the neo-expressionist movement, Baechler is also acknowledged as a second-generation pop artist. In the vein of contemporaries such as Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf, Baechler incorporated childlike imagery in his paintings, also taking note of styles established by Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet. His seemingly ordinary subjects–such as flowers, houses, and household items–are transformed to symbolize universal themes like community, identity, sexuality, and mortality. Through the combination of collected media images and his own drawings and paintings, Baechler expressed an interest in pop culture, giving the illusion of nostalgia among viewers.

His artistic process combined drawings, paintings, collage, printmakin,g and graphic art. His creative process began amidst a vast collection of popular images and objects, and inspired by classical art history, the New York School, contemporary art, folk art, outsider art, pop culture, and childhood memories. 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 can 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, and Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, among other notable institutions worldwide.