shanty Bay Press

Walter Bachinski


Walter Bachinski was born in 1939 in Ottawa.  He worked closely with Frederick Hagan at the 0ntario College of Art graduating in 1965 and went on to complete his Master's  Degree at the University of Iowa under the direction of Mauricio Lasansky in 1967. Shortly thereafter, he began teaching at the University of Guelph, gaining tenure in 1970 and progressing through the ranks to  Full Professor in 1984. At that time he began reducing his teaching, eventually leaving the University in 1994.

 Bachinski has travelled extensively throughout his career, at first studying the mural work of Orozco and Siquerios in Mexico and later the museums of Europe to see first hand the great works of the past.  Eventually he focussed on the masterpieces ( particularly French)  of the  late 19th and early 20th century art housed in collections in France and the United States.

The very early work was primarily black and white and was concentrated in the areas of printmaking and drawing.  He then began working on sculpture in the round and relief in the early seventies.  In 1975 Bachinski  introduced the Mother and Child theme  and shortly thereafter the Artist and Model.  His work became more classical in style and  in 1978-79 he spent a year in France where he started to work seriously in colour  with pastels and began to examine the idea of Still Life. Since 1994, Walter Bachinski has devoted himself exclusively to his art in his studio in Shanty Bay, Ontario. In 1996, with Janis Butler, he established Shanty Bay Press and divides his time evenly between working on book projects and pastels, prints and sculpture.