Donald W. Buchanan

The Buchanan Art Collection (1963), known as The Buchanan Gift, was the first significant public art collection ever to exist in Lethbridge, Alberta. It was rare in Canada in 1963 that an art collection of that quality came to a city of Lethbridge's size. Besides a fitting tribute to their parents, the Buchanan Gift reflected brothers Donald and Hugh's Canadian-ism and their strong belief in the democratization of the arts.

This statement by Donald Buchanan is true. Norah McCullough^[2] of the National Gallery of Canada praised Donald Buchanan, one of the two donors: "Mr. [Donald] Buchanan's superlative judgment in art matters is undisputed."^[3]

Many of these ten are landscapes. When we consider Donald Buchanan's opinion about landscape painting, this is not surprising. "Are we not, as a nation, obsessed with the magnitude of geography; as a people, are our minds not constantly involved in the problems of space and distance? Nothing more natural then than that we should be attracted firstly and most strongly to the visual arts and in particular to landscape painting."^[4]

These three artworks were inspired by the artist's visits to southern Alberta from 1937 on. The West became a source of renewal for his art. In Chief Mountain From Belly River Jackson sets up the undulating rhythm of Alberta's foothills through which the Belly River meanders in early autumn, culminating with the striking shape of Chief Mountain. In Elevators At Night, Pincher Creek three prairie elevators stand like monumental sentinels against a cloudy Big Dipper-studded night sky. In Waterton Lake Jackson evokes the windswept snow banks along the lakeshore in contrast to the more staid treatment of open water of Waterton Lake. These artworks confirm Jackson's declaration that: "the foothills of Alberta, with the mountains as a background, afford the artist endless material."^[5]

While visiting his brother Ernest who lived in Lethbridge during the third week of September, 1937, Jackson was befriended by Frederick Cross, a member of the Lethbridge Sketch Club, who with others drove him around to their favourite painting spots: the Bar X Ranch near Pincher Creek on September 20^th, Lundbreck and Cowley. In October 1938, Jackson returned, and visited the Porcupine Hills. After teaching at the Banff School of Fine Arts during the summers of 1943-47, 1949-51 and 1954, Jackson then traveled to Lethbridge and sometimes to Waterton Lakes National Park. From 1945 – 1950, Jackson regularly painted with Lethbridge Sketch Club members P. J. Collins, Percy Henson, Robert Barrowman and Ed Faiers.

The Buchanan Gift includes works by artists who lived and painted in southern Alberta such as Roloff Beny, Janet Mitchell, Dennis Burton and Steve Kiss. It also showcases more broadly speaking Western Canadian artists such as B.C. Binning, Maxwell Bates, Peter Ewart, Steve Kiss, Toni Onley, William Welch and Janet Mitchell.

In subject matter, the Art Collection is Canadian with some of the work inspired by the Gaspe – Haworth and Hyndman. A few are international in subject matter: the Seine inspired Jack Gray and St. Marks Square in Venice, Italy inspired Roloff Beny.

Some of the works in the Art Collection deal with Prairie Space, a phenomenon brothers Donald and Hugh knew intimately growing up on the prairies. Some are Abstract and are highly indicative of Canadian art in the 1950s.

Donald Buchanan wrote about some of the artists whose works he gave to the Art Collection in his Writings.

The History of the Art Collection is integral to the Buchanan Gift to the Lethbridge College. Ultimately brothers Donald and Hugh Buchanan gave this invaluable art collection to the Lethbridge College "without any qualification whatsoever"^[6] as a lasting tribute to their parents Hon. W. A. Buchanan and Mrs. Alma Buchanan. This Site carries on the intent of that gift.

1. ^ Donald W. Buchanan in a letter dated Jan. 6, 1961 to Norah McCullough, Lethbridge Art Association 1961 file, Western Extension, Box 1, Norah McCullough fonds, National Gallery of Canada.

2. ^ Norah McCullough (1903 – 1993) worked as Liaison Officer for Western Canada for the National Gallery from 1958 to 1966. Prior to that, after graduating from the Ontario College of Art in 1925, she worked with Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Toronto from 1927 to 1937. From 1938 to 1946 McCullough helped organize an art school in Pretoria, South Africa and favoured Native craftsmen. From 1947 to 1958 she was the Executive Secretary of the Saskatchewan Arts Board. McCullough co-curated Canadian Fine Crafts in 1966.

3. ^ Norah McCullough, in an undated unnamed article titled "Buchanan Gift of Paintings to Lethbridge."

4. ^ Donald W. Buchanan, "The Story of Canadian Art," Canadian Geographic Journal, 17, No. 6, Dec. 1938, 273.

5. ^ A. Y. Jackson, A Painter's Country, Memorial Edition, (Toronto and Vancouver: Clarke, Irwin and Co., 1976, 146.

6. ^ Donald W. Buchanan in a letter dated Jan. 29, 1963 to the City Clerk, Lethbridge, City of Lethbridge Archives, as quoted by Nancy Townshend, The Lethbridge Community College and The City of Lethbridge Art Collections, (Edmonton: Visual Arts Branch, Alberta Culture, November 1985), 1.