Overview:
Donald W. Buchanan
(1908 - 1966)

Certain formative qualities distinguish Donald William Buchanan that would make him "one of the most significant Canadians of our generation,"^[1] according to Hamilton Southam. At an early age his high moral character and keen intellect were discernable. "I can and do bear testimony to his high character, attainments and interests,"^[2] wrote Dr. Ralph Flenley, his former University of Toronto professor in 1934. Similarly, his Master at University College, Oxford, M. E. Sailler, noted: "Mr. Buchanan is a man of alert intelligence and varied interests. While he was in Oxford he showed a strong interest in art, and attended classes at the Ruskin School of Drawing."^[3]

As well, Buchanan's deep feeling for history and remarkable talent as a writer were revealed in his guidebook to Waterton Lakes (its first) in 1928. When he was only twenty, he penned, for instance, this commentary on Pass Creek at Waterton Lakes National Park:

But more than Indians have used these old trails. Over them came the first white traders and explorers. Then in more recent years they became the haunt of cattle rustlers, and soon after the rumbling echo of stumbling hoofs had passed in the distance, came the tramp, tramp of the pale faced Chinese, shuffling weakly but desperately over the hard alpine trails driven forward by the ruthless immigrant smugglers. Then came law and order represented by the Mounted Police and in their wake came the prospector lured by the prospect of oil soon to be followed by lumbering wagons loaded with cumbersome oil machinery for 'Oil City.'^[4]

Buchanan developed a love of Canada and a sense of egalitarianism while occasionally visiting Ottawa as a small boy from Lethbridge:

What I did, however, acquire from such wanderings on Parliament Hill was a pre-adolescent and slightly bemused vision of the greatness of Canada, in which the green patina of the copper roofs of the neo-Gothic government edifices took equal place [Editor's italics] with those stone mills and factories which, a few hundred yards away, straddled the river and hid from sight the foaming rush of the Chaudiere Falls.^[5]

A tea party in honour of the retrospective exhibition of the Group of Seven, (1936) National Gallery of Canada Archives (view in database)

Pivotal in Donald's life (outside his family) starting in the 1930s was Harry McCurry, then Assistant Director of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). In September 1934, McCurry wrote about him to Hon. Vincent Massey: "in my opinion, he is in every way the type... we badly need in Canadian Museum Service... I consider him extremely well-fitted [to work in the National Gallery.]"^[6] McCurry arranged in 1934 for Buchanan to receive a fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation to train with him in museum administration at the NGC, and to research a catalogue raisonné of paintings, watercolours and sketches by James Wilson Morrice in Montreal from February to April 1935. An extension of the Carnegie Corporation grant enabled the young art historian to work on Morrice in London and Paris.^[7] In March 1935, McCurry described the twenty-seven year old to Dr. J. C. Webster: "One of our [Carnegie Corporation] Scholarship students, and perhaps the most successful one, is Mr. Donald W. Buchanan.... He has done a great deal of excellent work and has made a special study of the life and work of J. W. Morrice.... When he completes his work on Morrice he will either come to the National Gallery permanently or...."^[8] There followed a long and meaningful association with McCurry. In 1936 Buchanan wrote the Introduction to the Retrospective Exhibition of Painting by Members of the Group of Seven (1919 - 1933) at the NGC, and then worked for McCurry as Director of its Industrial Design Division from June 1947 to 1953. Buchanan become its Chief from 1954 to 1955 when McCurry retired.

By 1955, Buchanan, newly appointed Assistant Director of the National Gallery of Canada, was in his prime. The same year Robert Ayre noted that: "One of the first things that strikes you in Donald Buchanan is his Canadianism... he has helped develop our self-consciousness as a nation."^[9] This Buchanan achieved besides, and prior to, his employment at the National Gallery starting in 1947 while working at the National Film Society of Canada (1936 - 1937), the Canadian Radio Commission (1937 - 1940), the National Film Board (1941 - 1948) and as a writer of Canadian art. As John Collins has so aptly pointed out, "long... before he undertook to organize a national design council, Buchanan was working to establish national cultural awareness among the public."^[10]

As the first Secretary-Treasurer of the NFS, Buchanan furthered NFS's aim to disseminate and to have appreciated outstanding educational films across Canada. As Director of talks and public affairs for the Canadian Radio Commission (now CBC) from January 31, 1937 to November 30, 1940, Buchanan organized a network and regional programme of broadcasts and forums across Canada. While Director of Photo and Graphics Division of Wartimes Information Board (WIB) from 1940 to 1941, Buchanan collected photographs^[11] for, and edited his book, This is Canada (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1944). From October 1941 to May 1948, Buchanan worked at the NFB for Director John Grierson who wanted "to encourage films that will relate our familiar scenes to wider concepts of citizenship and statehood."^[12] Correspondingly Buchanan wrote about "Promoting Democracy, With 16mm Film" in the Canadian Forum in 1943.^[13] The NFB created documentary films such as the "Toilers of the Grand Banks" and "Farmers of the Prairies" which aimed to put "the workaday face of Canada on the screen."^[14]

"Design For Use in Canadian Products," (1947) National Gallery of Canada Library (view in database)

As a stimulus for his revolutionary exhibition "Design For Use in Canadian Products" (1946) at the NGC, Buchanan asked: "What are the raw materials, the skills we, as Canadians, are best endowed with? Where should we begin to look for good indigenous industrial art in Canada?"^[15] These questions would be integral to Canada developing its self-consciousness as a nation. Good design in manufactured products meant simplicity, fine proportions and functional utility. Altogether, 95 metal products, 60 wood, 40 plastic, 25 glass, 12 ceramic and 20 textiles - all recently Canadian-made objects for everyday living - were exhibited in this show. Titled "Design in Industry," this exhibition circulated throughout Canada from 1946 to 1950. Buchanan described the aim of the creator of each product: "Design For Use, Design For Millions."^[16] This concept shows Buchanan's mature tremendous sense of egalitarianism nationally.

His subsequent work in Design formulated Canadian culture. From June 1947 to 1953 Buchanan worked as the Director of the Industrial Design Division of the NGC including its Information Services. He was instrumental in establishing the National Industrial Design Committee (NIDC) in 1948 with the blessing of C. D. Howe, Minister of Reconstruction and Supply from 1944 to January 1948. Buchanan became its first secretary. It is thought that due to his father, Senator W. A. Buchanan, son "Donald was allowed personal access to C. D. Howe,^[17]... who was the guiding hand in the transition of Canadian industry from a war time to a peace time economy and a key politician to win over."^[18] Howe had officially opened the Design For Use exhibition on October 1, 1946. In February 1953 Buchanan set up the Design Centre at the NGC. This became, in effect, the headquarters for the NIDC which maintained The Canadian Design Index, a registry of Canadian industrial design products of merit. The NIDC also gave out annual Design Awards to Industry. From April 1, 1954 to 1955 Buchanan worked as Chief of the NGC's Industrial Design Division.

At this time Buchanan also worked in the NGC's Extension Department., thereby further implementing his strong belief in the democratization of the arts.

Buchanan's writings before and after 1955 ensured that he shaped Canada's "self-consciousness as a nation."^[19] This impressive legacy included twelve books, on Morrice in 1936 and 1947, Pellan in 1962, and Zadkine posthumously in 1967, for instance, one hundred and twenty-one articles on Milne, Carr, Schaefer, Quebec's Roberts and Borduas, and Alberta's Beny, for example, nine exhibition catalogues.

Buchanan also wrote about other subjects crucial to Canada's cultural identity. In his article titled "Lost to Canada" in Canadian Art (1946), Buchanan deplored the fact that the National Gallery of Canada could ill-afford to purchase major European artworks held in private Canadian collections. Instead some Canadian collectors such as Gordon Edwards, H. S. Southam and William Van Horne were selling their major artworks to New York markets. "If the [Canadian] museums cannot pay the full New York prices, cannot some other way be found... [so that these masterpieces] may be saved for the nation? The wider question of the relation between public and individual interests, which this exodus of modern masterpieces raises, should be the concern of all Canadians interested in the cultivation of a liberal and well founded national understanding and appreciation of the fine arts."^[20] The Canadian government heeded Donald Buchanan. Six artworks in the Edwards Collection including Daumier's Third Class Carriage had "now been saved for the nation:"^[21] reported Buchanan in his May 1947 article. He wrote four reports primarily on educational films in Canada. From 1944, as Co-Editor of Canadian Art until 1958, he furthered shaped Canadians' awareness of Canadian art. Buchanan photographed Canada primarily of the 1960s.

Second Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Art, (1957), National Gallery of Canada Library (view in database)

In his work at the National Gallery, Buchanan helped acquire Borduas's Les Parachutes vegetaux (1947), its first abstraction by Borduas, for its permanent collection^[22] in 1948, just after the publication of Borduas's Refus global. The NGC had acquired two sketchbooks by Morrice from Buchanan in 1936 and glass negatives of Morrice's paintings.^[23] He wrote insightful Introductions to the NGC's exhibition catalogues on the Group of Seven in 1936, Zadkine in 1956, the Second and Third Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Art in 1957 and 1959, Fine Canadian Crafts in 1957 and Pellan in 1960. All of these endeavours contributed to Canada's cultural identity.

Buchanan's contributions to the Man and His World International Fine Arts Exhibition at Expo '67 (1965- 1966) in Montreal as its first Director, became the culmination of his lifework, interests, and universal meaning that art held for him. Negotiating with the Louvre, British Museum and other international public museums and collectors for works of art for this important show, Buchanan sought art which embraced "human universality which governs man's expression in art in all its manifestations, archaic, primitive, classical and contemporary."^[24] Donald W. Buchanan, himself, embodied the underlying philosophy of Expo's theme as expressed by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: "To be a man... is to feel that through one's own contribution one helps to build the world."

Concomitant with this international understanding of art's significance in the world and indicative of his strong belief in the democratization of the arts was his honouring his birthplace, Lethbridge, Alberta with the Buchanan Gift. It is as if Donald W. Buchanan by offering, with his brother Hugh, and ensuring the gift of an art collection to Lethbridge implicitly knew his place in the world. This Site further enhances that intent.

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