New York City (1959, gelatin silver print, 22.5 x 19.3 cm) by Lutz Dille, at the Canadian Photography Institute. (National Gallery of Canada)
New Canadian Photography Institute
The National Gallery of Canada received an unprecedented $10M gift from Scotiabank to establish one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of photographs and related materials: the new Canadian Photography Institute.
The gallery’s existing collection of 200,000-odd photographs and negatives will also be bolstered by thousands of images, equipment and ephemera donated by David Thomson, the chairman of Thomson Reuters Corporation and a renowned collector of art. Thomson has donated 12,000 objects in the past year alone, and his earlier donations to the gallery are valued at more than $40 million.
The collection marked a fundamental shift and include not only art photography, but also photojournalism, documentary photography, and even vernacular photography — those images of daily life taken by amateurs or other unknowns.