Among the exhibitions of Australian art curated by Buckley is the first major retrospective show of Sidney Nolan’s works on paper in the late 70s and Nocturne: Images of Night and Darkness in Australian Art from Colonial to Contemporary in 2002.

John Buckley curated the Loti and Victor Smorgon Collection of Contemporary Australian Art which is now part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. He has acted as an advisor to a number of major private and corporate collectors including the Michael Buxton Collection, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deutsche Bank, the Westin Hotel and is the current advisor to the Grand Hyatt, Melbourne.