He worked as an artist for a time and was responsible for much of the interior decoration and paintings of New York's Trinity Church for its bi-centenary celebration in 1897.
[7] One newspaper reviewer wrote the following about the sets designed by Buckland for the stage production of Omar, the Tentmaker: "Pictorially nothing finer has ever been disclosed upon the stage than the succession of sumptuous Oriental pictures evolved for the production by Wilfred Buckland, who for 10 years served as art decorator for David Belasco.
[4] According to some accounts, producer Jesse L. Lasky purchased the movie rights to Belasco's plays, and Buckland's services as art director were part of the deal.
In 1916, The Democrat-Tribune newspaper commented that Buckland, "art director of the Lasky Company," was also "known as the greatest collector and authority on ancient firearms in the country," and his collection was said to be "the most complete in the world, not barring that of the British Museum.
Buckland developed a reputation as one of the early film industry's great artists, as reflected in the following 1918 newspaper report:"Among the producing firms who belong to the class where imagination is based upon culture, are those associated with Paramount.
Such men as Cecil DeMille, William DeMille, J. Searle Dawley, Maurice Tourneur, Joseph Kaufman, Robert Vignola, Robert Thorley, Marshal Neilan, Thomas H. Ince, J. Stuart Blackton and the others who produce for Paramount have added their very considerable bit to spelling Art with a capital A in motion pictures, but that is Wilfred Buckland's business exclusively.
"[15]Similarly, in 1920, a reviewer noted that the "wonderful interior settings for Don't Change Your Husband ... were designed by Wilfred Buckland, art director, whose hand is responsible for so much that is highly artistic in Artcraft and Paramount films.
He noted at the time that he hoped to see film sets move away from the building of real or photographic interiors and deal more with atmosphere.
But the majority of moving pictures are still far behind commercial photography, which is becoming less and less photographic while most of the advertisements in the back pages of our magazines are more artistic than the average movie.
[23] Buckland was credited with developing the art of miniature stage building, as reflected in a 1924 Daily Democrat-Tribune newspaper account: "The art of miniature stage building has been introduced into the production of motion pictures as another means toward economy and efficency [sic], and of insuring fidelity and realism.
In 1946, Buckland was part of a murder-suicide at his home located at 2035 Pinehurst Avenue in the Hollywood Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.
"[20] The Los Angeles Times reported on the tragedy as follows:"Hollywood's first art director, 80-year-old Wilfred Buckland Sr., yesterday killed his mentally ailing son, 36, and then fatally shot himself in a double tragedy inspired by his fear of impending death from old age and reluctance to leave the younger man alone in the world.
Termed the 'founder of Hollywood cinema art,' the elder Buckland fired a bullet into the back of his sleeping son's head, which brought instant death.
[27] In 1924, the magazine Story World selected a list of the ten individuals who had contributed the most to the advancement of the motion picture industry from the time of its inception.
The list omitted DeMille, but included Buckland, who was credited "for his work in developing and perfecting technical art in films.
In his book The Art Direction Handbook for Film, Michael Rizzo wrote:"The practical vision of Buckland, the little known Hollywood art director and initiator of the use of controlled lighting within studio environments, set a standard in the first decades of the twentieth century that has become as commonplace as shooting film sequences in Hollywood soundstages today.