Donald William Buchanan

Donald William Buchanan (1908–1966) was a Canadian art historian, arts administrator, and author.

Career Donald Buchanan was born in 1908 in Lethbridge, Alberta, to Senator William Ashbury Buchanan and Alma Maud Buchanan (née Freeman). He studied modern history at the University of Toronto and later attended the University of Oxford. In 1934, he received a fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation to train in museum administration and to complete a biography on the Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924). In 1945, he advocated for a greater design quality in Canada after criticizing the mediocrity of its furniture design.

Selected publications

James Wilson Morrice: A Biography (1936) Canadian Painting from Paul Kane to the Group of Seven (1945) Design for Use (1947) The Growth of Canadian Painting (1950) Alfred Pellan (1962) A Nostalgic View of Canada (1962) Sausages and Roses (1963)