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Overview: Photography Exhibitions:
Donald Buchanan, The Photographer On a six months leave of absence in 1958 from his posts as Associate Director of the National Gallery of Canada and editor of Canadian Art, Donald Buchanan traveled with his 35 mm. camera to Paris, vineyards of Burgundy, the Rhone Valley, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Istafan, Petra and Persepolis. The exhibition A Not Always Reverent Journey, 1959-60 featured sixty-nine photographs he took on this trip and were selected by Alan Jarvis, Director of the NGC. "Buchanan went as an amateur photographer but as an observer with the trained eye of an art critic and gallery man accustomed, over long years, to looking at pictures, and with a cultivated and piquantly personal point of view."[1] The NGC circulated the exhibition to Toronto, Kingston, Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, London, Ontario, Saint John, New Brunswick, Halifax, Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Brandon, Saint Jean, Quebec and Winnipeg from 1959 to 1961.
Robert Ayre, art critic for the Montreal Star, believed that some of Buchanan's finest photographs in this show were of sculpture: "the ancient lions, bulls and other carvings in his 'Memoirs of Darius and Xerxes,' the cornices and columns of other great civilizations of the remote past, the prophets and saints of Rheims, Dijon and Siena, the bony 12th Century Templar on his tomb in Laon, the theatres and tombs in the rosy cliffs of Petra."[2] Buchanan's appreciation for Middle East sculpture is noticeable in the selections for The International Fine Arts Exhibition at Expo '67. Another photograph in the 1959 show juxtaposed a boy lying and reading in the paws of a lion sculpted in stone in Venice. Composition was of paramount interest to Buchanan in his photographs. In Boats c. 1958 - 1963, Buchanan judiciously places three boats in the foreground relative to the fourth boat and wide expanse of the Mediterranean. Moment in Lugano, c. 1958 - 1963, features a balanced composition. Ayre also noted: "and there is always the human touch: the eye for the old ladies hurrying home, for the priests in theological discussion, the gossips, the boys carrying bottles of 'mineral water,' the barber in the street outside the grand gate, the live goats... and cats, and the wonderful stone lions...." [3] Other European scenes that Buchanan took include:
Maxwell Bates perceptively wrote in 1960 that in Buchanan's photography "comedy and irony provide a psychological play of light and shade parallel to the light and shade of textural elaboration."[4] A Critic's Eye, Photographs by Donald W. Buchanan at the Here and Now Art Gallery in Toronto in 1960 featured twenty-two photographs ranging from scenes of Calgary, Hull, Quebec, Burgundy, Assisi, Greece and Ispahan. These were photographs by a critic's eye and not a casual eye. As Carl Weiselberger noted in the Ottawa Citizen "there is very little artistically 'accidental' in these photographs. The hour of the day, lighting, plastic values, composition, seems the results of a careful study."[5]
Still Canada was at the heart of his mission. While living in Rome in 1962, Buchanan carefully selected from his photographs, and wrote (the autobiographical) A Nostalgic View of Canada published by McClelland and Stewart in 1962. The title for the special edition, To Have Seen The Sky, referred to Buchanan's prairie roots. The first half of the book in images and writings recalled Buchanan's childhood growing up in Lethbridge and southern Alberta in the early part of the 20th century: "the struggle for culture in the thin pioneering days... the newness of the West, the sense of impermanence, the lack of a past."[6] The second part of the book dealt with "the traditions which had taken root in the East... And the comparison and synthesis of the two." With images to match, Buchanan "is an aware and sensitive observer and it brings East and West together." The photograph Barns on the Maxwell Road in A Nostalgic View of Canada epitomized Buchanan's formalist, Canadian, international and nostalgic interests. As he conveyed in describing the scene: "There they were ahead! Two precise geometrical shapes lit brilliantly white against the blue sky: one Ontario barn and one Ontario stable... as much impact of form as any modern chapel by Le Corbusier on a French hilltop. But such directness of statement is no longer easily come by. This land is too complicated now, too mixed up - with tomorrow jostling the day before yesterday, with dilapidation and growth fighting for room on the same horizon...."[7] Buchanan's A Nostalgic View of Canada was portrayed as "an all-Canadian song of affection." [8] In December 1963, Buchanan's burgeoning career as a photographer was cut short by another, more urgent mission: to be the first Director of The International Fine Arts Exhibition "Man and His World" at Expo '67. Given his international art and museum contacts as a Canadian living abroad and his travels as a photographer, he was the perfect man for the job. 1. ^ Robert Ayre, "Photographer's Irreverence Results in Fine Exhibition," Montreal Star, February 13, 1960. 2. ^ ibid. 3. ^ ibid. 4. ^ Maxwell Bates, "Visual Art and Photography" in Canadian Art 17, No. 2 March 1960, 91. 5. ^ Carl Weiselberger, "Gallery Director Shows Photography As An Art," Ottawa Citizen, September 30, 1959. 6. ^ Robert Ayre, "Nostalgic Look At A Canada That Is Gone." 7. ^ Donald Buchanan as quoted by I. N. S, "To Have Seen The Sky," Ottawa Journal, Jan. 12, 1963. 8. ^ ibid. |
