McClain Gallery is pleased to present The Planet of Memory, the third solo exhibition of new paintings, works on paper and sculpture (including the first casting of several recently completed bronzes) by acclaimed New York based artist Donald Baechler.  Known for his brightly colored and thickly outlined iconic foreground images painted over heavily textured, collaged and painted backgrounds, Baechler’s subject matter and graphic painting style have a childlike sensibility coupled with nuances of humor and wit that are immediately recognizable.  The highly textured surfaces of his lighthearted bronze sculptures mimic the collaged backgrounds of his paintings and works on paper with such playful takes on traditional subject matter as a flowerpot, a smirking figurative bust and a lifesize walking figure with an oversized "globe" head. 

Born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1956, Baechler lives and works in New York City.  He studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, at Cooper Union in New York and internationally at Staedelschule in Frankfurt.  Baechler recently completed a large scale (over 30 feet tall) public sculptural commission in Westhampton Beach, New York on the East End of Long Island.  His work can be found in over 40 public museum, university, corporate and municipal collections, including: The Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre George Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris; Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; Museum Ludwig, Budapest; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Lenbachhaus, Munich; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Eli Broad Family Foundation; Fisher Landau Center; Sony Corporation; Thomas Ammann Collection; Peter Brant Collection; and the Revlon Collection.