A wealthy Toronto family that donated a multi-million-dollar collection of Annie Leibovitz photographs to a Halifax art gallery – says they won’t give up on their goal of having the work showcased.

A spokeswoman for the Mintz family, Bonnie Jackson says they are “incredibly disappointed” that a federal board has refused to certify the bulk of the collection as “culturally significant.”

The family donated more than two-thousand photos by the famous American portrait artist to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia – and would have gained tax incentives from certification.

Jackson says a bureaucratic panel in Ottawa shouldn’t be rejecting – what museums acknowledge as important gifts.