[2] 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).
[1] The following year, Buchanan founded the National Film Society of Canada, and in 1937 he joined the Canadian Radio Commission.
[3] He encouraged Canadian craftsmen and manufacturers to ditch tradition and to develop an aesthetic more akin to that of Scandinavia, instead.
[2] In 1958, Buchanan developed an interest in photography and took a six-month leave of absence, travelling to France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Jordan in order to pursue his artistic practice.
In December 1963, he was appointed director of the International Fine Arts Exhibition Man and His World at Expo '67.