Andy Warhol, Donald Baechler, Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat
OFF WHITE
May 18 - June 12, 2000

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Donald Baechler
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Donald was born on November 22, 1956 to Quaker parents in Hartford, Connecticut. He was the second of four children. At the age of five Donald made his first painting, a collaboration with his grandmother, Elsie Dolliver.

Donald recalls as a child that he "scribbled on little pieces of paper all day long. Little drawings, 'doodles' and those kinds of things. It was an obsession." On Sundays Donald and his family would attend the Quaker meeting house. This would often be followed by a visit to the Wadsworth Antheneum, an art museum in Hartford. Donald remembers seeing his first Warhol paintings here - an early hand painted soup can and a triple silver electric chair. In 1970, at the age of 13, Donald bought his first art book, Rainer Crone's catalogue Raisonne of Andy Warhol. He was attracted to the comic strip paintings (Nancy, Dick Tracy, etc.) illustrated in the book.

From 1971 to 1974 Donald attended a Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia and Quaker summer camp in Maine. While in Philadelphia, he frequently visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art (home to the Arensberg Collection of modern art). At 15 Donald declared that he would become a rich and famous artist.

1974-77 Donald studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore. It was here that he first met Jeff Koons. At the age of 16 or 17, Donald spent the summer working as a janitor at the Wadsworth Antheneum - a job that allowed him a great deal of time to look at art. In 1977 Donald Baechler moved to New York City and attended Cooper Union. The most influential class at Cooper Union was that of Hans Haacke. It was in Haacke's class that he met two young German artists, Gerhard Nashberger and Georg Jiri-Dokoupil.

Donald lives and works in New York City.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
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The Gallery has championed the work of Basquiat since the early 1980's and always believed him to be among the greatest artists of the last 50 years. Recently for the inauguration of our new gallery in Chelsea, we presented a selection of his paintings along two of the great masters of the 20th century, in the exhibition, "Picasso, Bacon, and Basquiat".
Andy Warhol
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Spanning his long and productive career, Andy Warhol's portraits represent his largest body of work. Fascinated by the people he encountered, Warhol strove to immortalize them with images of their most glamorous selves. Mixing the grand tradition of Greco-Roman statuary with his distinctively underground version of Hollywood, he turned everyone into a star and lent everlasting life to an entire society. His subjects ranged from presidents to industrialists, from movie stars and sports figures to fashion designers, from society ladies to business men and women as well as ordinary people. Andy saw everyone as interesting, original and sacred, and worthy of being immortalized.