N.S. art gallery dealt major blow as board rejects bulk of Leibovitz collection
HALIFAX — It was an enormous coup for a small art gallery, scoring 2,070 photos by famed American portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz.
But the donation of the multi-million-dollar collection to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia by a Toronto family has been mired in controversy — with allegations that the gift was a potential tax shelter — leaving the images of celebrity and pop culture icons in storage for four years.
On Wednesday the Halifax gallery’s fourth and final application to have a federal board certify the photographs as “cultural property” of outstanding significance was rejected, casting a shadow over the prospects of the gallery holding an exhibit of the photographer’s work.
A gallery spokesman said the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board has once again concluded that the bulk of the photographs did not meet the criteria for outstanding significance or national importance.