Painter, printmaker and illustrator Otto Bacher was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied with DeScott Evans and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Returning to Ohio, he formed an association with Willis Seaver Adams, who helped in the establishment of the Cleveland Academy of Fine Art and who was instrumental in having Bacher appointed to its governing board.

For much of the decade beginning in September, 1878, Bacher lived in Europe and enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He also studied with Frank Duveneck, and traveled with him to Venice, where Duveneck established a studio and where Bacher met and became friends with James A. McNeill Whistler, occasionally visiting him over the ensuing years until Whistler’s death in 1908. A return trip to Europe led to classes at the Academie Julian, and another stay in Venice.

Settling in Bronxville New York where he permanently settled, Bacher was in high demand as an illustrator, and was a founding member of the Society of Illustrators. He was elected an associate of the National Academy of Design.